As nurses around Australia celebrate International Nurses Day, they will need to stay patient beyond this Federal Budget for specific and significant nursing reforms and funding announcements.
The theme for International Nurses Day is Our Nurses. Our Future. Empowered Nurses Save Lives.
It must also be the theme of the next round of health reform.
The Australian College of Nursing (ACN) acknowledges housing affordability and cost of living relief must be priorities for the Government in the current economic climate, but support for nurses and nursing cannot be delayed further.
Acting ACN CEO, Dr Zach Byfield, said the policy proposals in the ACN 2026-2027 Pre-Budget Submission remain priorities, especially empowering nurses to turn around falling vaccination rates, reduce aged care hospital admissions, expand hospital capacity through advanced nursing roles, and expand medicine access by scaling registered nurse prescribing.
"Big-picture health reform, especially for nurses and nursing, remains unfinished business," Dr Byfield said.
"We urge the Government to release the much-anticipated National Nursing Workforce Strategy, implement the recommendations of the Cormack Review into scope of practice, and enable and fund more nurse-led models of care.
"Funding the National Nursing Workforce Strategy is vital to ensure Australia has the nursing workforce in the right numbers in the right places to care for our growing and ageing population - and to take pressure off an already stressed workforce.
"Nurses on hospital wards are under incredible strain from surging rates of chronic disease - type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and kidney disease - which are driving more complex and more frequent acute hospital presentations.
"The way to relieve that pressure is to boost the capability of nurses in primary care to manage chronic disease before it becomes a hospitalisation."
Dr Byfield said there were still positives in the Budget for health and nursing.
"We welcome expanded access to MBS items for nurse practitioners and midwives," Dr Byfield said.
"ACN also welcomes the Government's decision to fully subsidise personal care services - including showering, dressing and continence care - in aged care plans, reversing a co-contribution model that had drawn widespread concern from older Australians and the workforce caring for them.
"Nurses are already at the heart of aged care but must be supported to continue to provide the highest quality care for older and frail Australians and build rewarding career pathways in the sector.
"ACN supports the funding boost for Urgent Care Clinics (UCCs), and the move to make them permanent.
"There is significant potential for nurses to improve access for people to get the care they need when they need it in Urgent Care Clinics.
"UCCs offer opportunities for nurses to take on more leadership roles with genuine multidisciplinary teams, especially in communities with few or no GPs and where UCCs are struggling to stay open the recommended hours due to staffing pressures.
"There is clear evidence that nurse-led care is high quality, easily accessible, more affordable, and keeps people out of hospital and other more costly care. The nurse-led walk-in centres in the ACT are a prime example.
"We need new funding models that enable nurses to work independently to their full scope of practice in multiple settings, especially primary care and aged care."
Dr Byfield said ACN looks forward to working closely with the Government ahead of the next budget to deliver significant and overdue reforms that will unleash the full potential of nurses to lead in the provision of care for all Australians.
"Nurses are the solution. Empowered nurses save lives."
