Last week’s Federal Budget flagged a new era of reforms to aged care involving strategies to fill important workforce gaps, such as the new plan to expand the services of Nurse Practitioners (NPs) into the sector. The Nurse Practitioner Workforce Plan was constructed to remove barriers preventing NPs from providing older people accessing aged care with health services they’re qualified and trained to do.

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) supports the plan as Federal Secretary, Annie Butler, was a member of the Steering Committee for the plan. She said the plan outlined a series of strategic actions to help strengthen the community’s access to quality primary healthcare services.

“The plan recognises the true value of NPs and how they can provide tangible solutions to the many challenges across the health and aged care sectors, which are impacting the delivery of timely safe health care,” Ms Butler said.

“Expanding NPs’ scope of practice and introducing incentives such as an increase in MBS rebates for their services could finally allow NPs to provide people with direct access to safe, quality ‘everyday care’, without having to go through a GP.

“This will remove unnecessary duplication, cost and time-wasting for many Australians in underserved communities and ensure they can access quality care when and where they need it.”

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