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Our pathology workforces work to analyse samples of the human body to understand what’s going on inside. They are responsible for running blood and tissue tests, as well as other analyses of people’s bodies (including a range of other biopsies). Many of our pathology workforces work out of laboratories, either owned by Health NZ or operated privately; around 75% of our laboratories used for public pathology work are privately-operated.

There are several main pathology workforces:

  • Pathologists – doctors who specialise in pathology. We have 356FTE pathologists in New Zealand: 213FTE employed by Health NZ and 143FTE employed in the community.
  • Medical laboratory scientists, who prepare samples and run tests, among a wide range of other lab activities. We have 1,733FTE medical laboratory scientists in New Zealand: 639FTE employed by Health NZ and 1,094 employed in the community.
  • Medical laboratory technicians, who perform more technical tasks and support pathologists and scientists to do a variety of pathology work. We have 715FTE medical laboratory technicians in New Zealand: 408FTE employed by Health NZ and 307 employed in the community.

Our pathology workforce also includes other specialist workforces, like clinical geneticists.

Our labs, both public and private, are essential to the timely diagnosis and treatment of disease – and can be an enabler and a blocker of good flow through our primary care system and through hospitals.

 

 

Today
Our estimates of current FTE shortages across the health sector, based on current ways of working, are around:

By 2033
Based on current trends, models of care and technology, if we do not change how we work, we estimate that by 2033 we would need additional FTE across the health sector of around:

Pathologists

 

+30

7.8% of our total need

+60

14.7% on top of current pipeline

Medical laboratory scientists

 

+50

3.0% of our total need

+260

13.4% on top of current pipeline

Medical laboratory technicians

 

+60

8.0% of our total need

+240

36.2% on top of current pipeline

Health NZ pathology services are relatively well-placed to manage current levels of demand. However:

  • Long-term, the outlook for pathologists, scientists and technicians is less positive – with material shortages anticipated if nothing changes. This is because our numbers of new graduates are not keeping up with anticipated demand for pathology services – which we expect to rise over time as people age and as tests become even more important. 
  • Relatively low pay and high workloads are a significant driver of current levels of workforce supply in our technician workforce, making it hard to recruit and retain talent. This contributes to an anticipated need for more capacity in our technician workforce by 2033 if nothing changes. This is exacerbated by relatively limited opportunities for progression; and is true both for Health NZ, and for pathology services in the funded sector.

Pathology services outside of Health NZ have articulated more significant workforce challenges – driven by factors including differences in pay between Health NZ and private providers.

We also have inconsistent approaches to how we grow our pathology workforces across the public and private sector; with different models of public-private training from region to region.

The opportunity

We want to focus on the future of pathology, and building a sustainable workforce for 2033 and beyond. To do so, we will need to seize opportunities including:

  • Leveraging the opportunities of technology and infrastructure to improve the quality and workload of pathology activity, so we can manage the increased volumes we expect to see over time without huge increase in the size of our workforce. We will need to consider a range of ways to achieve this investment, given the prevalence of private laboratory services – which might include public-private partnerships.
  • Ensuring that we have the right blend of workforces involved in pathology services – with better pathways for people to progress over the course of a career in pathology services.

What will it take?

With a focus on the long-term, we need to make careers in pathology more attractive and visible to young people – and to better retain people over the course of a career in pathology. To do that, the focus over our next three years is:

  • Growing scientist and technician training capacity. Increasing training numbers in qualifications that lead to medical laboratory technician and scientist roles, with more proactive recruitment of students out of these programmes into our labs, will help bolster our workforces across the sector.
  • Target pathology for specialist growth. At the same time we need to improve resident doctors’ exposure to pathology roles and settings, to grow a larger medical pathologist workforce for the future.
  • Improve the pathology experience of work. We know from our people that lab work can be draining and, at times, monotonous. We need to improve opportunities for our pathology workforces, so people have better non-financial reasons to stay with us long-term.

Longer-term, there are significant opportunities to invest in technology and infrastructure to make our labs work more efficiently and effectively – and free up pathologist, scientist and technician time to do more interesting work and add more value, such as in health surveillance. These will require changes to how we fund services, and models of care.

Action What we'll do
1.9 Plan medical training capacity nationally Develop a national map of medical training volumes, so we can align future increases in training numbers to specialties where need is greatest.
2.4 Improve support for progression Expand development opportunities for professionals in areas with less clear pathways today, including orderlies and support roles.
4.5 Create private training capacity Reach agreement with our major private providers of public health services (e.g. private hospitals delivering public surgical lists) to allow training in private settings, with consistent terms.