Making real connections to the community goes with the Territory

With over 76 remote communities across the Territory, you’ll encounter unique medical presentations and learn alongside experienced specialists. Be prepared for unsealed single-lane roads or light-aircraft travel, whether you’re based on-site or providing outreach from an urban centre.

NT Health Primary Health Care centres - urban and remote - offer:

• preventative checks
• chronic-disease reviews
• immunisations
• oral and hearing health
• health promotion
• in-home allied-health and aged-care services
• plus after-hours on-call support for emergencies in remote settings.

Explore a complete list of Primary Health Care clinics, discover community and accommodation info on the NT Government’s Bushtel site, and connect with the Rural Workforce Agency NT for placements in Aboriginal community-controlled services, GP and allied-health practices, and not-for-profit organisations across rural and remote regions.

Why should you make the move to the Northern Territory’s most remote areas?

Find out why going remote can give your career the boost you’ve been looking for.

Work in the remote Northern Territory and learn skills that you won’t receive anywhere else in the world. You’ll engage with the community, share their challenges, gain knowledge and witness first-hand how your work makes an impact.

Working in the Territory gives you the chance to make a real difference in the lives of others. You’ll be able to work in many different sectors, including regional and remote health delivery, Aboriginal health, tropical health and mainstream medicine, nursing and midwifery, allied health and oral and hearing health service delivery.

Some of the advantages of working in the Northern Territory’s remote areas include:

• being supported by strong multidisciplinary teams and networks
• working  across clinical areas that allow you to develop and grow within your full scope of practice
• flexible working arrangements
• accelerated career opportunities
• learning from, and growing with your community and taking part in unique cultural activities not experienced elsewhere in Australia
• engaging in innovative clinical research projects.

Many communities and surrounding outstations in the Territory do not have easy access to hospitals or doctors. However, Population and Primary Health Care have centres located throughout the regional and remote areas of the Territory that are supported by a wide range of outreach services.

Each centre provides a 24-hour, 7 day emergency response through health staff on call, as well as providing all sorts of health care services to the community.

Services and programs the centres offer are:

• antenatal care
• the Healthy Under 5 Kids Partnering Families Program
• the Australian Family Nurse Partnership Program
• the Healthy School-Aged Kids Program for infants and children
• childhood and adult immunisation
• preventable chronic conditions program
• women and men’s screening
• infectious and communicable disease prevention and control
• emergency care and referral to hospital and specialist level care when required.

These services and programs are focused on supporting early identification and intervention, strengthening patients’ social and emotional well-being and solving the social issues that affect people’s health.

We offer fly-in/fly-out services through our outreach teams so you can work in remote areas all across the Northern Territory, or for those who don’t like flying, we may be able to drive you to a few locations via 4WD.

Services provided by these outreach teams include:

• aged care
• alcohol and other drugs
• cancer screening
• community allied health
• environmental health
• hearing health
• mental health
• oral health
• public health.

Our outreach teams also provide a range of culturally responsive well-being programs.

As a remote worker, you will be supported by specialist clinical expertise through our major public teaching hospitals in Darwin and Alice Springs, as well as the smaller public hospitals in Nhulunbuy, Katherine and Tennant Creek.

You will also have access to specialist medical, nursing and allied health services through visiting specialists, outpatient care at hospitals, and telehealth consultations.

We offer placements to undergraduate or postgraduate students for health professionals in medical, nursing and midwifery, allied health and oral health services.

Graduate opportunities are available with options for graduates to progress through various levels of their discipline-specific professional stream - depending on what vacancies we have available.

These undergraduate opportunities include full funding to complete your studies and a structured and supportive traineeship program to become a qualified Aboriginal Health Practitioner - diploma level.

Postgraduate opportunities include:

• GP registrar and rural generalist training pathways
• transition to Remote Area Nursing N3 Training Program
• Employed Model Remote N2 Training Program
• Allied Health Rural Generalist Training Program

The Northern Territory Population and Primary Health Care team provides preventative and chronic disease management to remote communities using a community development model to enhance health outcomes and improve services and infrastructure.

Most rural medical practitioners are based in large centres with weekly outreach visits to the smaller community health centres. Some rural medical practitioners opt to live in larger remote communities allowing them to become completely immersed in the remote community life.

From here, you’ll be able to progress into a range of different roles - such as clinical leadership, clinical research, team leadership and management, portfolio management and safety and quality.

Rural medical practitioners also provide a 24 hours, 7 day acute/emergency telehealth service to support the government and non-government, including the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation clinics across the regions. This service also supports primary health care nurses to care for patients in community or facilitates aeromedical retrieval if hospital level care is required. This role can be performed by rural medical practitioners living in regional centres within the Territory or interstate.

Remote area nursing in the Territory offers unique and varied experiences.

Advanced clinical practice nurses and midwives work within a multidisciplinary team environment in health clinics and centres, private homes, from the back of a remote emergency vehicle, and even on the side of the road. You will have opportunity to develop your clinical skills and knowledge to the full potential of your scope of practice- beyond anything you ever expected.

As an experienced remote area nurse or midwife, you will also have the opportunity to progress your career into clinical education, clinical leadership, clinical management, clinical research, infection control, medicines management, professional practice and safety and quality roles.

As a remote allied healthcare professional, you will be improving the health and well-being of a culturally rich and diverse population and working across our communities to improve the health and well-being of all Territorians. Joining our team allows you to work in a supportive workplace culture that supports multidisciplinary interactions, research and clinical education.

Being a remote allied healthcare member provides opportunities for you to work across a wide range of therapeutic, diagnostic, scientific and other health-related industries such as:

• audiology
• health promotion
• nutrition and dietetics
• occupational therapy
• pharmacy
• physiotherapy
• psychology
• radiography
• social work
• speech pathology.

From these services, your career in allied health can progress in clinical leadership, clinical research, team leadership and management and safety and quality roles.

We provide oral and dental health general and emergency services to all our community health centres, and through mobile dental facilities. Positions for dental officers, dental and oral health therapists, dental prosthetists and dental assistants across the Territory are highly regarded for the experience and skills gained both clinically and culturally.

As an oral health specialist, you have the option of developing your career with clinical leadership, management and safety and quality roles.

Discover how you can start your new career in the primary care sector in the Territory. To find out more, go to the Northern Territory PHN website.