05 Mar 2025

Snapshot of the Nursing Workforce in Australia

In 2020, CNSA advocated to incorporate cancer care as a job area health professionals could nominate in their AHPRA registration. The data from this annual registration process, together with data from a workforce survey that is voluntarily completed at the time of registration, forms the National Health Workforce Dataset (NHWDS). This data is accessible to the public through the Health Workforce Data Tool and this document is a snapshot of this data.

Snapshot of the changing dynamics of the workforce

In 2020, CNSA advocated to incorporate cancer care as a job area health professionals could nominate in their AHPRA registration. AHPRA in conjunction with the national boards, is responsible for the national registration process for health professions. The data from this annual registration process, together with data from a workforce survey that is voluntarily completed at the time of registration, forms the National Health Workforce Dataset (NHWDS). This data is accessible to the public through the Health Workforce Data Tool and this document is a snapshot of this data.

There are now three full years of data on the cancer care nursing workforce available through the NHWDS. CNSA regularly refers to this dataset to examine trends and understand the changing dynamics of the workforce, which informs our strategies aimed at supporting the sustainability of the cancer nursing workforce to deliver optimal outcomes for all people affected by cancer.