Palliative care workforce
This chapter provides information related to the employed workforce of palliative medicine physicians and palliative care nurses over the period 2013 to 2023.
Note, this chapter only includes information on physicians and nurses, as these professionals can be specifically identified as palliative care providers in National Health Workforce Dataset (NHWDS) through Health Workforce Data Tool (HWDT). As a result, the information included in this chapter does not represent the entire palliative care workforce. Further information on how health care providers are identified through NHWDS and HWDT is provided in Data source.
The information in this chapter was last updated in October 2025.
Key points
In 2023, there were 358 palliative medicine physicians (335 full-time equivalent) and around 3,900 palliative care nurses (3,500 full-time equivalent) employed in Australia – equating to 1.3 and 13 FTEs per 100,000 population, respectively.
Of these:
- about 2 in 3 (64%) employed palliative medicine physicians and 9 in 10 (92%) employed palliative care nurses were women
- over 4 in 5 (85%) employed palliative medicine physicians and almost 3 in 4 (71%) employed palliative care nurses worked in Major cities
- 3 in 4 (75%) employed palliative medicine physicians and 1 in 2 (49%) employed palliative care nurses worked in a hospital setting.
Between 2013 and 2023, the number of employed palliative medicine physicians grew at a much steeper rate than palliative care nurses – physicians increased from 183 to 358 or 5.0% annual growth in the FTE rate (from 0.8 to 1.3 per 100,000); nurses increased from 3,300 to 3,900 or 0.8% annual growth in the FTE rate (from 12 to 13 FTE per 100,000).