One Year on Patients Have More Choice

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1 November 2011

Patients and pregnant women around the country are benefitting from trail-blazing nurse practitioners and midwives who, in collaboration with medical practitioners, are now providing Government-subsidised services to patients.

Following the Gillard Government’s groundbreaking health reforms introduced one year ago today that enabled eligible nurse practitioners and midwives to be registered by Medicare Australia for the first time, more than 5,200 midwifery services and nearly 29,000 nurse practitioner services subsidised by Medicare have been provided.

“In true pioneering spirit, Australia’s first nurse practitioners and midwives have provided thousands of services for working families in the first year of the Gillard Government’s historic reforms,” Minister for Health and Ageing Nicola Roxon said today.

“These highly trained and experienced professionals are setting the example for many more of their fellow midwives and nurse practitioners to follow and work in collaboration with doctors to provide Medicare-subsidised services and prescribe PBS medicines.”

One example of a great team working together is midwife Melissa Maimann in collaboration with obstetrician and former AMA President Dr Andrew Pesce, who provide this model of care, delivering greater choice for pregnant women in Sydney.

Also up and running is the new Smartclinic in Westfield Chermside Shopping Centre Brisbane, where nurse practitioners are now able to diagnose and manage common health conditions within their scope of practice and also prescribe some PBS medicines—helping to free up the time of local GPs and hospital emergency departments to see more cases.

“The first steps in implementing these two health reforms have taken some time, requiring a lot of local groundwork in communities across the country. It has taken much new goodwill and good collaboration across some fairly sacred patches of professional turf.

“Health reforms are bringing many local communities safe, professional services where none existed before. Many are new kinds of services—a first for Australia,” Minister Roxon said.

Last year, the Government made significant investments to enable continued growth of these initiatives to boost health care in local communities, through:

• $59.7 million over four years to enable nurse practitioners to access relevant new items under the MBS and to prescribe certain medicines under the PBS
• $66.6 million to expand MBS and PBS support for eligible midwives, with an additional $25 million for access to professional indemnity insurance for these midwives.