Demand growth meets workforce shortages
Demand for imaging services continues to rise across metropolitan and regional WA, increasing reliance on radiological services throughout the healthcare system. At the same time, workforce shortages, training bottlenecks and recruitment challenges continue to constrain capacity across both public and private sectors. The result is growing pressure on radiologists, increasing reporting delays, and heightened risks to workforce wellbeing and service sustainability.
Funding and capacity challenges
Many in the profession argue that radiology has experienced prolonged periods of underinvestment. Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) fees for radiology services were effectively frozen for many years, limiting the sector’s ability to respond to increasing costs and demand. While the Commonwealth Government has recently resumed indexation of radiology rebates, workforce shortages and capacity constraints remain significant concerns.
In the public sector, limitations on equipment replacement, infrastructure expansion and training positions have contributed to capacity challenges. As a result, a substantial volume of public hospital imaging is outsourced to private providers, creating dependencies between public and private services at a time when both sectors are experiencing workforce pressures.
Public-private interdependence
Radiology highlights the interdependence of Australia’s public and private health systems. Public hospitals increasingly rely on private providers to meet demand, while both sectors compete for the same limited specialist workforce. Changes to funding arrangements, billing practices or workforce movement can therefore have significant consequences across the system.
Ongoing Commonwealth scrutiny of arrangements involving privately delivered imaging for public patients may further expose existing workforce and infrastructure deficits, if additional costs are shifted on to public health services.
Competition for a scarce workforce
Policy changes that improve the viability of private radiology services may benefit patients through increased service availability and competition. However, they may also intensify workforce competition. For many radiologists, public-sector employment offers opportunities beyond clinical practice, including teaching, training and research, which are professional activities that play a critical role in developing the next generation of specialists and advancing medical knowledge.
However, when clinical workloads consume virtually all available departmental capacity, opportunities for research and training can become increasingly difficult to sustain. Protecting these elements of professional practice will be important if public hospitals are to remain attractive workplaces for specialist radiologists. Maintaining a strong public radiology workforce will require not only investment and policy reform, but also a sustained focus on the workplace conditions, professional opportunities and career pathways that influence where radiologists choose to practise.
Industrial concerns remain
From an industrial relations perspective, workforce attraction and retention are inseparable from employment conditions. Radiologists employed within the public health system continue to raise concerns regarding aspects of their industrial entitlements, including access to employment conditions available to other medical practitioners and the resolution of longstanding industrial arrangements.
As with all specialist workforce groups facing shortages, unresolved industrial issues can disproportionately impact recruitment and retention. Ensuring modern, equitable and competitive employment arrangements will be an important component of maintaining a sustainable public radiology workforce.
The next round of bargaining for public sector doctors in 2027 will provide an important opportunity to address longstanding industrial concerns and improve the attractiveness of public-sector radiology practice. The AMA (WA) will be advancing claims aimed at strengthening recruitment, retention, and career sustainability, recognising that workforce challenges cannot be solved through recruitment alone.
The effectiveness of that advocacy will be strengthened by an engaged and representative membership, ensuring radiologists have a strong voice in shaping the outcomes of bargaining.
