Palliative care services in Australia

In 2022, among employed palliative medicine physicians and palliative care nurses (Figure 2):

• Palliative medicine physicians worked an average of 36 total hours per week (29 clinical hours), which was less than that for all employed specialist medical practitioners (42 total hours and 35 clinical hours, respectively).
• Palliative care nurses worked an average of 34 total hours per week (31 clinical hours), similar to all employed nurses and midwives (35 total hours and 30 clinical hours, respectively).
• Men worked longer hours on average per week than women both for palliative medicine physicians (40 vs 34 total hours) and palliative care nurses (37 vs 33 total hours). This is consistent with the pattern observed for all employed specialist medical practitioners and all employed nurses and midwives.
• The average total hours worked per week in Inner regional areas (40 hours) was the longest for palliative medicine physicians and the shortest (33 hours) for palliative care nurses. Note that for palliative medicine physicians, data are not presented for Remote and Very remote areas due to small counts.
• The average total hours worked per week for palliative medicine physicians ranged from 34 to 39 hours and for palliative care nurses from 28 to 37 hours across work settings. In private practice setting, palliative medicine physicians tended to work longer hours than palliative care nurses (38 vs 28 total hours). 
• For palliative medicine physicians, researcher or academic had the longest average hours worked per week (52 total hours), followed by administrator (37 total hours) and clinician (36 total hours). Meanwhile, administrator had the longest average hours worked per week (38 total hours) for palliative care nurses.

Figure 2: Average hours worked per week by employed palliative medicine physicians and palliative care nurses, 2022