S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

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nurses (see Table 1.5) working in ACCHS and AMS, 48.6% work in remote and very remote locations. This is a modest proportion, particularly when considering the vastness of the landmass that is classified as remote Australia (see Chapter 1). With increasing remoteness, the number of nurses working in community mental health services dramatically decreases. This is consistent with the challenges experienced in providing permanent specialist mental health teams in remote and very remote locations; there are insufficient numbers of mental health nurses to populate such a vast landmass. The mental health nurses identified as working in community-based mental health teams make up just 3% of those working in remote and very remote locations. There is a similar trend of reduced numbers linked to remoteness for nurses working in hospitals (2.0%), residential mental healthcare services (0.5%) and drug and alcohol services (2.2%). This is consistent with the lack of mental health infrastructure and resources available in remote and very remote Australia (see Chapter 2). 1.6.8 Current profile of remote mental health nursing workforce The National Health Workforce Data Set (AIHW, 2012) showed that of all employed nurses (both RN and EN), 6.6% indicated they were working principally in mental healthcare, with approximately three-quarters (74.4%) employed in major cities. The lowest numbers of workers were in the remote and very remote categories, representing 1.3% of the mental health nursing workforce. If the workers’ loads are combined and calculated as Full Time Equivalent (FTE) workers per 1,000 population, this still results in major cities being the highest, at 86.6/1,000, and remote and very remote the lowest at 51.4/1,000 (see Table 1.6.).