ACN calls on a re‍-‍elected Labor to fast‍-‍track health reform

In the wake of Labor’s federal re-election, the Australian College of Nursing (ACN) is calling for the government to fast-track its health reform processes, especially the recommendations of the Cormack Review.

“It is vital that the momentum for significant and much-needed health reform initiated by Health Minister Mark Butler, Assistant Health Minister Ged Kearney, Aged Care Minister Anika Wells and Assistant Minister for Indigenous Health Malarndirri McCarthy continues and picks up pace in this second term,” ACN CEO Adjunct Professor Kathryn Zeitz FACN said.

“The time to restructure the health system for the future is now,” Zeitz said. “We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to truly reform Medicare and the health system to make it sustainable in the years and decades ahead — for our children and their children.”

Zeitz said Australia must move beyond doctor-only healthcare solutions, and that nurses, nurse practitioners, midwives, pharmacists, physiotherapists and other allied health professionals have more to offer in multidisciplinary teams. “Scope of practice reforms will allow all health professionals to work to their full capacity and potential — what they were trained and educated to do,” Zeitz said.

“New funding models, including blended payment systems, will create efficiencies and improve patient access to the care they need when they need it and where they need it. This will create equity of access for rural, regional and remote communities; First Nations communities; disadvantaged and vulnerable populations; and older Australians.

“The government has the blueprints for action — including the work of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce, the National Nursing Workforce Strategy and the Scope of Practice Review.” 

Zeitz said the Cormack Review outlines the funding and regulatory reform required to deliver real improvements to the delivery of primary health care.

“In an era of soaring rates of chronic conditions and an aging population, we need the multidisciplinary care these reports envision to address strains on our health system and preventable hospital admissions,” Zeitz said. “We need funding reform for primary care to increase the proportion of blended funding, which would allow funding of more multidisciplinary care in primary practice.”

Specific funding for innovative nurse-led models of care is also being called for by Zeitz, as is the need for workforce shortages to remain a critical focus. “We look forward to the release of the National Nursing Workforce Strategy this term. We require comprehensive measures to not only attract people to the profession, but to provide incentives to former nurses to return to practice, and for current nurses to remain committed to their vital roles,” Zeitz said.

“Overcoming resistance to change and doing the technical reform work will deliver enormous benefits to the health budget — and, most importantly, to patients.”

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