Australia has an ageing population resulting in demand for extensive and comprehensive care of chronic disease. This demand has required new thinking about primary health care workforce re-modelling to meet the health care needs of community dwelling older Australians. Sibbald and others have developed a model of skill-mix change to discuss workforce redesign.

We conducted a systematic literature review to identify skill-mix changes needed in the primary health care workforce to successfully meet the health care needs of older Australians. Sibbald’s concept that skill-mix changes could be obtained through task substitution, enhancement, delegation and innovation formed the conceptual framework for the review.