A unified call from Australia’s peak nursing and midwifery groups
Australia’s peak nursing and midwifery groups are calling on the major parties at this election to commit to immediate and effective reform that will provide all Australians with quicker and more affordable access to the health services they need.
The nine peak groups are advocating seven nursing-led reforms to improve care, reduce waiting times, and deliver better health outcomes with minimal impact on the budget.
The Peaks are calling for commitments to:
- ACTION 1: Enable Nurse Practitioners and Endorsed Midwives to directly refer patients to relevant specialists, reducing waiting times for care.
- ACTION 2: Introduce funding and regulatory reforms that support nurse and midwife-led clinics and innovative care models, particularly in rural, remote, and underserved communities, enabling nurses and midwives to take leadership roles in delivering community-based primary care.
- ACTION 3: Work with State and Territory Governments to pass laws to support qualified Registered Nurses in every State and Territory to prescribe approved medications under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
- ACTION 4: Increase the Workforce Incentive Payment Practice Stream to cover up to seven healthcare professionals, and tie payments to higher scope clinical care.
- ACTION 5: Authorise Nurse Practitioners, Endorsed Midwives and qualified Registered Nurses to order diagnostic tests such as mammograms, X-rays and DEXA scans. For Endorsed Midwives, this includes tests such as NIPT, pelvic ultrasound, multiple pregnancy items and iron studies.
- ACTION 6: New and amended Medicare Benefit Schedule items for Endorsed Midwives to support pre-conception counselling, primary sexual and reproductive health, intrapartum care outside of a hospital setting (homebirth), and a general consult item for women’s health.
- ACTION 7: Implement a primary healthcare workforce development strategy to unlock 15,000 extra education and training places for Registered Nurses, Nurse Practitioners and midwives in the places and settings that need them most.
The plan reflects the recommendations of the Unleashing the Potential of our Health Workforce – Scope of Practice Review, which was led by Professor Mark Cormack.
The review identified significant barriers preventing nursing and midwifery professionals from working to their full potential. These barriers must be removed.
Nurses, nurse practitioners, and midwives make up 54 per cent of Australia’s health workforce. They are the most geographically dispersed health workforce in the country.
But one-third of nurses, nurse practitioners, and midwives in primary health care rarely work to their full scope. This must change.
For too long, our highly skilled nurses, nurse practitioners, and midwives have been held back by outdated regulations, restrictive funding models, and professional silos.
Health reform is complex, but enabling these essential healthcare professionals to deliver the full range of care they are trained and qualified to provide must be a priority for the next government.
The proposed changes will significantly improve access to primary care, especially in rural and remote areas, reduce wait times, further promote culturally safe care, and create more cost-effective pathways for patients.
Nurse-led primary health care has been operating successfully in Australia for decades.
These reforms represent a crucial step toward a more accessible and sustainable healthcare system.
The evidence is clear: when nurses, nurse practitioners, and midwives work to their full scope of practice, everyone benefits.
More information
media-release-seven-point-plan-for-immediate-effective-health-reform.pdf (214 KB, PDF)
