To help more students, completing 4 or more weeks of placement from 1 September 2024, we’re removing the requirement to live a minimum of 100 kilometres away from your placement location. Eligibility requirement for students to reside 100 km from their placement remains in place from 1 January to 31 August 2024. All other eligibility conditions will remain in place.

This allowance is for students who do a clinical placement in their final stage or year before qualifying and registering as an enrolled or registered nurse or midwife.

Your education provider must also have a Student Placement Deed and a signed Deed of Variation with Queensland Health.

Your education provider placement coordinator must organise the placement on your behalf.

About the student allowance payment

We want more students to experience working in our regional, rural or remote areas and have the opportunity to gain a wide range of practical skills.

To help, we’re offering a $5,000 one-off allowance to eligible nursing and midwifery students because we know doing placements cost more.

The allowance is available from 1 January 2024 for 4 years.

What you’ll experience

When you do your clinical placement in regional, rural and remote health care, you’ll find unique opportunities and experiences that you won’t find anywhere else.

You’ll work in a diverse and supportive environment that encourages community engagement. You’ll care for people with a variety of acute, primary, and chronic conditions and make a real difference to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Making meaningful connections in these communities will help you grow, connect, learn, and create life changing experiences that will shape your future career.

Eligibility

You can apply for the allowance if you’re:

  • enrolled with an Australian education provider that has a current Student Placement Deed and Deed of Variation with Queensland Health
  • a Queensland resident, including international students for the purpose of study
  • in the final stage or year of your pre-registration nursing or midwifery studies.

You can only receive the allowance once.

Your placement must also be:

This program will be continually reviewed for quality and assurance purposes.

How to apply

Before your placement

You must submit the following forms 6 weeks before your placement.

  1. Read the eligibility criteria and make sure you meet them.
  2. Read the NMRRSPA Details Application Form Instructions [PDF 947.49 KB].
  3. Fill in the NMRRRSPA Student Deed Poll Funding Form [PDF 419.21 KB] and NMRRRSPA Details Application Form [PDF 878.05 KB] and send these through as 2 separate documents.
  4. Email the 2 forms to nmrrrspa@health.qld.gov.au.

After your placement

You must attend and complete your placement before submitting your payment form.

  1. Read the NMRRSPA Details Payment Form Instructions [PDF 969.95 KB].
  2. Fill in the NMRRRSPA Payment Form [PDF 1143.42 KB].
  3. Email the payment form to your education provider and ask them to endorse it and return it to you.
  4. Email the endorsed payment form to nmrrrspa@health.qld.gov.au. Your payment form must be submitted to Queensland Health within 3 months of completing placement.

You may need to pay income tax on the allowance, so we recommend getting independent financial advice before submitting your tax return.

We recommend getting independent financial advice if you’re getting any Centrelink payments, as this may affect your income threshold. It may also affect any levy surcharges such as the Medicare levy surcharge.

We’ll review your forms and when approved, pay the allowance into your nominated bank account within 7 days.

Work opportunities

Our regional, rural and remote communities need nurses and midwifes. We want to provide a clinical placement experience that inspires you to look for ongoing opportunities so you stay on after your placement finishes.

We also offer other payments and benefits as part of our workforce attraction incentive scheme. This includes bonus payments for each year of service.

Guideline

Read the Nursing and Midwifery Regional, Rural and Remote Student Placement Allowance Guideline [PDF 213.71 KB] if you’d like to know more about the allowance.

Contact us

If you’ve got any questions about the allowance or how to apply, you can email nmrrrspa@health.qld.gov.au.

Last updated: October 2024