Service/care provider—full-time equivalent, unit N[.N]

Identifying and definitional attributes

• Indigenous, Standard 07/12/2017

Resource and service planning:

To assist in the analysis of the resource use and activity of health-care providers. Inclusion of these data, classified by staffing category, allows analysis of costs per unit of labour and analysis of employee inputs against establishment outputs.

Value domain attributes

Representational attributes

Collection and usage attributes

One FTE is equivalent to one employee working full-time.

Source and reference attributes

 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Data element attributes

Collection and usage attributes

The ordinary number of hours normally worked may differ according to the type of work. The hours under the relevant award or agreement should be used if known. If the relevant award or agreement does not specify employee hours for an occupation or it is not known, or the employee is undertaking a variety of tasks, 38 hours per week should be used as a substitute.

Hours of unpaid leave are to be excluded.

Contract employees who are employed through an agency are included where the contract is for the supply of labour (e.g. nursing) rather than of products (e.g. provision of photocopies). If it is the former, the contract would normally specify the amount of labour supplied and could be reported as FTE units.

If under the relevant award of agreement, a full-time nurse is paid for 80 (ordinary) hours per fortnight, then the FTE for a part-time nurse who works 64 hours is 0.8 (64 divided by 80). If a full-time nurse under the same award is paid for a 100 hours for that fortnight (i.e. 20 hours overtime), then the FTE is 100 divided by 80 = 1.25. This number would then be added to the FTE employee units for all other employees and the number rounded to one decimal place.

Where employees provide services to more than one establishment, FTE should be apportioned between all establishments to which services are provided on the basis of hours paid for in each. (Salary costs should be apportioned on the same basis).

This metadata item is not intended to be an absolute calculation of employee hours, but a general indication of the number of hours a provider of service or care is staffed by paid employees.

This metadata item may be calculated over weeks, fortnights, months or an annual basis.

Source and reference attributes

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Relational attributes