At TFOM’s AGM held on 29 September 2025, we was fortunate to have Health Department Head, Mr Dale Webster, talk to us about his response to the depletion of the Tasmanian Occupational Physician workforce as highlighted by TFOM over recent years.

Mr Webster acknowledged that the Department of Health had a role to facilitate the development of a sustainable model to train Occupational Medicine specialists in Tasmania. He committed his Department, through the Office of the Chief Medical Officer, to work with TFOM, along with WorkSafe Tasmania and the WorkCover Tasmania Board to ensure that Occupational Medicine, as a Specialist Craft Group has a sustainable local workforce in Tasmania. He said:

“We have agreed to set up a Steering Committee with our Chief Medical Officer’s office involved as well as WorkSafe or WorkCover and your organisation [TFOM] to try and work out what is that sustainable model over the next period.”

Mr Webster highlighted the importance of ‘clinical services profiling’ to ensure services are relevant to the risks and needs of Tasmanian communities, illustrated by reference to Tasmania’s West Coast with its mining, fishing, farmed salmon industries and the growth of adventure tourism.

Mr Webster highlighted the critical importance of prevention strategies, referring to the Department’s 20-year Preventive Health Strategy and the development of relevant management systems. He referred to the value of learning from OEM principles:

“…….the models that have developed in occupational medicine and occupational health and safety on how we actually prevent injury, long-term illness and those sorts of things.”

Mr Webster went on to describe how these strategies can combine with other Health Department initiatives, including Digital Health Transformation and investment in research through the planned Centre for Impactful Research and Innovation to achieve better health outcomes for all Tasmanians. He also highlighted the importance of a ‘Whole of Government’ approach in the same way as the government’s mental health and suicide prevention strategy.

Mr Webster clarified, in response to a question from Helen McArdle, that the process to achieve the objective of a sustainable occupational specialist workforce in Tasmania was a ‘blank slate’ from his perspective but acknowledged that a funded OEM Registrar position was likely part of the solution.