Admitted patients workforce

This section presents information on the numbers of full-time-equivalent (FTE) staff:

• for public hospital services and their average salaries, by state and territory, over time and for 2018–19

• for private hospitals for 2016–17 (most recent available data).

In the data visualisation below you can explore information on the staff working in public hospitals for 2018–19 and private hospitals for 2016–17, including details on the numbers of full-time-equivalent (FTE) staff.

National trends

Public hospitals

In 2018–19:

• there were 391,000 FTE staff in public hospitals
• 163,000 FTE Nurses accounted for 42% of staff
• 48,000 FTE Salaried medical officers accounted for 12% of staff.

Between 2017–18 and 2018–19:

• there was a 3.3% increase in the number of FTE staff overall
• salaried medical officers increased by 4.1%
• the number of nurses increased by 3.7%.

Average salaries in public hospitals

Between 2014–15 and 2018–19:

• the average salary for staff employed in providing public hospital services increased by 3.1% on average each year
• public hospital average salaries for Nurses and Salaried medical officers increased by 3.2% and 4.7% on average each year, respectively.

Private hospitals 

In 2016–17 (most recent available data):

• there were 69,300 FTE staff in private hospitals
• 1,400 FTE Salaried medical professionals were reported by private hospitals, accounting for 2% of FTE staff in both private free-standing day hospital facilities and private hospitals not specialising in same-day care
• 38,300 FTE Nurses were reported by private hospitals, accounting for 52% of FTE staff in private free-standing day hospital facilities and 56% of FTE staff in other private hospitals.