Nurses face a glass ceiling, preventing them from utilising their skills and training, according to Health Minister Mark Butler.

Mr Butler told ABC Radio it didn’t it didn’t make sense not to have every single one of our health workers operating to what they describe as the top of their scope of practice, which is utilising all of their skills, all of their training, and all of their experience.

“That’s what I want to see for our nurses, Nurse Practitioners, pharmacists, allied health workers, and general practitioners as well.”

In its submission to the Unleashing the Potential of our Health Workforce Review (the Cormack Review), the Australian College of Nursing (CAN) provided evidence that empowering and rewarding nurses to work to the full scope of their practice would offering a range of benefits to patients and communities.

Benefits would include higher quality care, safer care, more easily accessible care and more affordability.

ACN CEO, Adjunct Professor Kylie Ward FACN, said nurses were the largest and most geographically dispersed health profession in Australia, with around 450,000 nurses and midwives working across Australia in cities, suburbs, regional
centres, towns, villages, and rural and remote communities, including isolated First Nations communities.

“Nurses are often the most qualified health professional in many communities. In some communities, nurses are the only health professionals,” she said.

“On top of these numbers, the Nursing and Midwifery Board estimates that there are more than 75,000 registered nurses and midwives who are currently not working as nurses.”

The ACN believes primary care reform would help encourage many nurses to  return to the profession.

“Empowering nurses to work at their full scope of practice will ensure that more Australians will have access to the right care in the right place at the right time,” she said.

With Australia’s growing and ageing population, these reforms are more important than ever, with higher incidence of complex and chronic disease. We’re also still emerging from the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on health services.

“There are also ongoing health workforce concerns across many professions, with the shortage of GPs, especially in rural and remote areas, being a major catalyst for change,” she said.

The AMA reports that Australia is facing a shortage of more than 10,600 GPs by 2031. Minister Butler confirmed the Government was committed to removing requirements for Nurse Practitioners to work under the supervision of a GP under ‘collaborative arrangements’.

“ACN supports multidisciplinary teams of health professionals working together in primary care settings in models that demonstrate a break from the traditional GP-led models through the introduction and expansion of innovative, contemporary nurse-led models,” Adjunct Professor Ward said.

“Quality and safe leadership can be provided by nurses or allied health professionals in keeping with the staffing or geographic circumstances of individual services.

“This will benefit patients but, to be fully effective, significant investment will be needed to increase the numbers of Nurse Practitioners, who are very highly qualified nurses, and the broader nursing workforce.”

Adjunct Professor Ward highlighted the fact that primary care nurses supported a vast array of community groups, including aged care, palliative care, mental health, people from CALD backgrounds, First Nations peoples, and people with disabilities.

“Allowing primary care nurses to work to their full scope of practice will provide better patient access to care, particularly for people who do not access care due to fear, lack of money, homelessness, or other factors,” Adjunct Professor Ward said.

“The shortage of doctors should be viewed as a chance to re-design and rethink how nurses work to benefit patients and communities to support all clinicians currently carrying the excess load.

“Nurses can create positive, productive, and interdisciplinary care with doctors and other health professionals all playing complementary and mutually supportive roles,” Adjunct Professor Ward said.