Aboriginal Workforce Composition Policy

NSW Health Aboriginal Workforce Composition Policy

The NSW Health Aboriginal Workforce Composition Policy (PD2023_046) is intended to provide local health districts, specialty health networks and other NSW health organisations the direction to grow and develop their Aboriginal workforce. Building on its previous iteration, in its Framework form (PD2016_053), it sets out the Aboriginal workforce development priorities, targets and KPI's for NSW Health.

This Policy Directive sets out the Aboriginal workforce priorities for the period 2021-2026 and provides direction to NSW Health to deliver against six key priority areas, meet minimum Aboriginal workforce representation targets, and to report against key performance indicators (KPI).

The Policy Directive is structured around six key priority areas:

• lead and plan Aboriginal workforce development.
• build cultural understanding and respect.
• attract, recruit and retain Aboriginal staff.
• develop and strengthen the capabilities of Aboriginal staff.
• collaboration to achieve workforce priorities.
• track our achievements and improve results.

While the Aboriginal representation in the NSW health workforce has grown, organisations will continue to set their own targets, based on local Aboriginal populations and specific Aboriginal health service needs. This includes not only organisations servicing regional areas with higher Aboriginal population shares, but also organisations in the Sydney metropolitan area (incl. the Blue Mountains and the central coast) where around a third of the Aboriginal population of NSW live; and is inclusive of local government areas with large Aboriginal community populations and suburbs with large Aboriginal communities. All of NSW Health will be actively contributing to the achievement of our Aboriginal workforce – even small specialist organisations.

Report collection

• Key performance indicators (KPIs) 1 to 6, and 10, will be measured and sourced from the Corporate Data Warehouse.
• KPIs seven and eight are to be completed by local health districts, specialty networks and other NSW health organisations.
• Respecting the Difference eLearning and face to face course attendance data, KPI nine, is collected through the Health Education Training Institute (HETI) reporting processes.
• Annual reports and feedback on outcomes will be reported to the Deputy Secretaries, Chief Executives, and other relevant stakeholders by the Aboriginal Workforce Strategic Steering Committee.
• Establishing Aboriginal Health Practitioners. This is to be developed as annual numerical targets in the relevant NSW Health organisation level Service Agreement, refer to the associated Information Bulletin that will be published on a yearly basis.

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