One of the most strik­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of our 2022 Mem­ber Sur­vey is the diver­si­ty of the nurs­es, mid­wives, and nurse prac­ti­tion­ers that make up the bulk of our membership.

There are inter­est­ing trends to unpack – such as the expe­ri­ence of new staff com­pared to expe­ri­enced staff, or the lev­el of sup­port permanent/​contracted staff receive com­pared to agency. How­ev­er, across the sur­vey, cer­tain mes­sages came through loud and clear for everyone.

What needs to change

31% of respon­dents are con­sid­er­ing leav­ing remote work in the next two years. Some sim­ply want to retire or work clos­er to home, yet many want to leave due to work conditions.

Many of you told us there’s not enough staff to man­age the work­load. You’re stretched and work­ing excep­tion­al­ly long hours, plus on-call. In some work­places, there’s only enough staff to han­dle acute needs, result­ing in less atten­tion on PHC.

In this envi­ron­ment, many of you are strug­gling to take leave when you need it – some­times due to unsup­port­ive man­age­ment, oth­er times because you feel duty-bound to stay. All of this tak­en togeth­er is some­times result­ing in burn-out and a lack of work-life balance.

These issues are, sad­ly, noth­ing new, but your feed­back, and the emer­gence of this theme across many of your respons­es, again affirms the need for sys­temic change. We will con­tin­ue to advo­cate for this.

7% of respon­dents don’t work remote­ly but plan to. That two thirds of these respon­dents are man­ag­ing their own tran­si­tion sug­gests the Gov­ern­ment needs to invest in pro­grams, like CRANAplus’ Remote Area Nurs­ing Path­way Pro­gram, that pro­vide a man­aged, afford­able, con­fi­dence- and skills-build­ing transition.

Safe­ty con­cerns remain a con­cern­ing trend. With­in the last 12 months, 8% of respon­dents have been expect­ed to attend call-outs on their own. 16% have expe­ri­enced a safe­ty and secu­ri­ty inci­dent in their accom­mo­da­tion; 21% con­cerns for the safe­ty of their per­son­al prop­er­ty; and 24% a safe­ty and secu­ri­ty inci­dent while car­ry­ing out their role. Only 53% say their work­place has ​‘com­pre­hen­sive’ or ​‘some’ safe­ty and secu­ri­ty poli­cies that are fol­lowed. You can read more about what we’re doing in the safe­ty space here.

Why we love remote health work

A love of remote health prac­tice shone through in your respons­es, and this of course includes the respons­es of those who have con­sid­ered leav­ing. So, why do we love remote health prac­tice? What moti­vates us to head remote in the first place, and to stay? 

More than two thirds of respon­dents work remote­ly because it enables them to make a dif­fer­ence to com­mu­ni­ties. 63% do it for pro­fes­sion­al exten­sion and sat­is­fac­tion, 48% for per­son­al or lifestyle ben­e­fits, and 32% for finan­cial benefits.

You also told us that you love remote work for these reasons:

Love of the outback: 

“I just love being in the outback!”

Coun­try connections:

“Mar­ried to a local!”

“Coun­try girl born and bred.”

The vari­ety:

“The abil­i­ty to choose loca­tions and contracts.”

“Vari­ety of pre­sen­ta­tions – not just one ward.”

Using your feedback

We have also received feed­back on top­ics includ­ing your favourite mem­ber­ship ben­e­fits, the issues we ought to advo­cate for, the CRANAplus ser­vices you use, addi­tion­al ser­vices we could offer, and what you read in the magazine.

CRANAplus Mem­ber Ter­ry has won the $200 gift vouch­er for her par­tic­i­pa­tion. Con­grat­u­la­tions Terry!

Feed­back gath­ered in the annu­al Mem­ber Sur­vey allows us to ground our ser­vices and advo­ca­cy in your needs as a remote health pro­fes­sion­al. We extend a warm thank you to those who were able to participate. 

If you couldn’t this year, we under­stand. This oppor­tu­ni­ty comes around annu­al­ly, and you can always reach out with feed­back or to share your expe­ri­ence at any time – via professionalservices@​crana.​org.​au or through a struc­tured chan­nel, such as our clin­i­cian round­ta­bles.

When asked whether you were like­ly to renew your CRANAplus Mem­ber­ship, many of you told us that you would renew because you want­ed to stand with your col­leagues and CRANAplus. You told us you want­ed to ​“sup­port CRANAplus and the remote work­force”, ​“sup­port a pro­fes­sion­al organ­i­sa­tion that pro­vides pos­i­tive out­comes and real­is­tic sup­port for all remote work­ers” and ​“sup­port the organ­i­sa­tion that sup­ports my profession”.

It is thanks to your ongo­ing sup­port, and your valu­able feed­back, that we can con­tin­ue to rep­re­sent and sup­port you. We pro­ceed into 2023 with a deep sense of com­mit­ment to our Mem­bers – and we thank you for your com­mit­ment to us, which makes it all possible.