Professional News 2008
August 2008
Nurses central to health care
Nurses are finally getting the recognition they deserve, with professional issues for nurses becoming a prominent feature of the national health policy dialogue in 2008.
References to the better use of nurses’ and midwives skills are now commonly part of discussions about health reform, models of care, workforce planning, preventative health, and primary health care.
The ANF national professional team has participated in a range of forums this year, including a national preventative health summit, national health workforce forum, roundtable discussions on rural health workforce and models of care, and on the role of nursing in primary health care. Each provided an opportunity to promote the value and capacity of nurses to contribute to national wellbeing.
While the ANF has always promoted the important role nurses play in contributing to positive health care outcomes there is a perceptible shift in the degree to which this is at last being acknowledged by government and other health care stakeholders. Not all, of course, but there is a strong sense that the time is ripe for reforms to embrace and take advantage of the enormous potential that exists in the nursing profession and use the skills and expertise of nurses to better effect.
No surprise to nurses and midwives of course, that the nursing and midwifery workforce can and does make a significant contribution to national productivity through promoting public health, easing pain and suffering, and assisting the population to achieve a better quality of life. As all nurses also know however, this has not always penetrated the consciousness of policy makers.
The ANF argued strongly in its recent submission to the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission that as the largest, most generic, health care workforce, nurses must be central to the planning and delivery of health services in order for the system to be sustainable.
However outdated structures of funding, archaic professional boundaries and excessive workloads have been limiting the capacity of nurses to work to the full scope of their practice. The ANF will continue to advocate that these challenges are addressed so the community can have access to the best nursing and midwifery can offer: safe, efficient and effective care.
As the UK and New Zealand have found in their new models of care for primary health services – the future is in collaborative and interdisciplinary arrangements. We hope reforms in Australia will support the recognition of nursing so Australia can follow suit.
Fiona Armstrong
ANF Senior Federal Professional Officer