Archived Grant Opportunity View - GO6385

The purpose of the grant is to provide scholarships and bursaries to privately employed health professionals in rural and remote Australia that enables them to retain and enhance their skills, capacity, and scope of practice in the fields of medicine, nursing, and allied health. This supports access to health services in these areas, while assisting in workforce distribution and retention via a return of service obligation (ROSO) for each scholarship awarded.

This grant opportunity will enable the continuation of the HWSP, as administered by the Rural Workforce Agencies (RWAs) acting as a consortium, led by Health Workforce Queensland (HWQ) Ltd. HWQ will work with all RWAs to administer the HWSP in all eligible jurisdictions and will comply with the CGRGs key principles as a third party. The consortium ensures a national approach with scholarships offered on the basis of jurisdictional health workforce needs assessments.

The scholarships and bursaries help address barriers that professionals may face with their commitment to rural practice, in upskilling, continuing professional development or broadening their scope of practice through further study. A ROSO is attached to some scholarship types to provide a greater return on investment. The objectives and outcomes for the program are contained within the Grant Opportunity Guidelines.

To view the grant opportunity documents, please select the red Grant Opportunity Documents button on the left-hand side.

To be eligible you must be the following organisation, Health Workforce Queensland Limited (Acting on behalf of the RWA consortium) ABN: 81 065 574 996. 

This organisation was determined as eligible for this grant opportunity as they have been assessed to have:  

• capability to deliver scholarships and bursaries to rural and remote locations including those priority areas identified in the Health Workforce Needs Assessment (HWNA) 
• existing infrastructure and relationships to support the project activities, and
• knowledge of and capability to deliver to the project objectives and outcomes.  

The RWA consortium has demonstrated their capacity and experience by successfully delivering the HWSP since 1 July 2017 alongside demonstrated experience in delivering a range of activities aimed at improving primary health care access in rural and remote communities. RWAs are equipped with expertise and well-established local linkages, working closely with the Primary Health Networks (PHNs), Local and State Governments and other workforce planning groups to undertake needs assessments to determine local skill shortages in Modified Monash 3 -7 locations. 

The Rural Health Workforce Support Activity program also funds the development of a Health Workforce Needs Assessment in each jurisdiction that also then informs priority areas and the allocation of scholarships and bursaries within each jurisdiction. This ensures that the HWSP objective is met, and also demonstrates to the community, the strong support on offer by Government to rural, regional, and remote Australia.

The program has seen over 30,000 scholarship and bursary payments provided to health professionals wishing to broaden their scope of practice through the provision of these scholarships, since inception.

$22,710,000.00

This is a non-application-based process. The eligible organisation does not need to apply for this grant opportunity.