The Federal Parliament's Senate Community Affairs Committee is conducting an Inquiry into the Health Workforce Australia Bill 2009 (the "Bill"). The Commonwealth agreed to establish a new health workforce agency at the November 2008 Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting and this Bill seeks to implement that commitment. Health Workforce Australia, as it will be known, will have a number of functions including:

• Supporting health workforce research and planing;
• The provision of financial support for undergraduate clinical training;
• The provision of non-financial support for clinical training (eg matching students with clinical placements);
• Workforce redesign and reform; and
• The provision of advice to health ministers.

The AMA has provided a submission to the Senate Inquiry.  The submission welcomes the extra funding for undergraduate clinical training that HWA will deliver and highlights the need to ensure that HWA funding for clinical training is linked to Australian Medical Council accreditation standards. The AMA also emphasises the importance of strong professional input into the activities of  HWA and puts forward a number of suggested amendments to the Bill.

The AMA has made a number of other submissions that are of significant relevance to the planned activities of  HWA including:

• Submission to the National Health Workforce Taskforce on the governance and organisation of clinical training, which can be found at http://www.ama.com.au/node/4539
• Submission to National Health Workforce Taskforce on understanding demand and capacity for undergraduate clinical placements, which can be found at http://www.ama.com.au/node/4495