Minister Butler and Assistant Minister Kearney, press conference – 30 October 2024

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR HEALTH, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS HEALTH, GED KEARNEY: Morning everyone. My name is Ged Kearney, and I am the Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care and the Assistant Minister for First Nations Health. Today I am here with my wonderful colleagues from the nursing and midwifery profession and with the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler. This really is an auspicious day. For many years, endorsed midwives and nurse practitioners have been held back from operating to their full scope of practice and giving the very best care that they can to our community through red tape that has really stymied their practice. The Albanese Labor Government and Minister Butler have introduced legislation that has taken away that red tape. It no longer is necessary for an endorsed midwife or a nurse practitioner to have a sign off from a medical practitioner in order for them to access MBS and to prescribe drugs on the PBS for their clients. This is a wonderful announcement. This really opens up the doors for endorsement wives and nurse practitioners to operate independently, to set up their own small businesses, to provide very best care to the community that we possibly can. It's great news for the community because it means increased access to healthcare at a time when we know that many people are struggling to get timely healthcare, particularly in our rural and regional areas, but also here in our cities. I'm really proud of this. Being a nurse myself for nearly 20 years – “once a nurse, always a nurse” - I still feel like a nurse. I'm incredibly proud to stand here for this announcement today. I'm very proud that the Albanese Labor Government has got the backs of our nurses and our midwives, and also cares very much about access to good, high quality health care. I'd like to introduce the Minister, Mark Butler.
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Thank you, Ged. Ged is really one of the outstanding nurse leaders this country has ever had. She led the nurses union, now the biggest union in the country. She took nursing to the top of the Australian union movement as the ACTU President, and now she is a loud and proud nurse in the Australian Parliament, working hard as part of the Albanese Government's health team, as the Assistant Minister for Health as well as now the Assistant Minister for Indigenous Health. It's such a great day to be joining the Victorian branch of the ANMF, the College of Midwives and the College of Nurse Practitioners here as well.
 
Because we know that nurses are the backbone of our healthcare system. More than 400,000 nurses in Australia are the biggest part of our extraordinary healthcare workforce. We want them to be able to do more. We want them to use every grain of their skills and their training and their extraordinary experience to broaden the range of healthcare services that they provide. I was really proud to be a part of the last Labor government where Nicola Roxon, as Health Minister, gave endorsed midwives and nurse practitioners access for the first time to the Medicare Benefit Schedule - the MBS - and to the PBS to be able to bill Medicare services and to be able to prescribe medicines under the PBS. That was a really terrific advance. And as I see it, and as I know Ged sees it, and the nursing organisations represented here see it, that is unfinished business. There is so much more to do to tap into that skills base and that experience base that nurses have, particularly for nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives.
 
We've got a big plan. We've got a big program to tap into that workforce more. When I left government in 2013 out of the health portfolio, there were only about 2,000 nurse practitioners in Australia. When we came back to government a decade ago, there was still only about 2,000 nurse practitioners, and hundreds of them were not actually working as nurse practitioners. We need to build this workforce, which is why last year in the Budget we funded almost 2,000 scholarships to start building that pipeline of nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives. It's a really important part of our program.
 
But from tomorrow, we will also see the end of legislated collaborative arrangements. What that meant was that nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives, in spite of being well recognised as autonomous practitioners with the skills to be able to operate autonomously, were required by law to enter into a collaborative arrangement with a doctor. That was fine if they could get it, but many nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives could not get it. We have recognised, after an independent review provided clear evidence that those collaborative arrangements have really no place in our system and should be abolished, which is why we were so proud to get legislation through the Australian Parliament to get rid of that. We're also lifting the Medicare rebates that nurse practitioners can claim for general consults, we lifted them by 30 per cent to ensure there's a financial viability for nurse practitioners who want to build their own businesses to be able to deliver healthcare in cities like this, but importantly, also in rural and regional Australia.
 
I's just a great opportunity to come together to talk with some endorsed midwives and nurse practitioners about the exciting things that they are doing across Australia, delivering really high-quality healthcare. But tomorrow is a really important day. It recognised the autonomy, the skills, the contribution that endorsed midwives and nurse practitioners can make, and we hope will continue to be making for many years to come. Thank you for bringing this together.
 
AUSTRALIAN NURSING AND MIDWIFERY FEDERATION VICTORIA, SECRETARY, LISA FITZPATRICK: It's wonderful to have everybody here, and I'd like to extend a warm welcome to representatives from the College of Midwives and also the College of Nurse Practitioners. And also to have our wonderful nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives with us today, sharing this really wonderful moment and historic moment. I have brought along with me the original report in Victoria back in 1999 about the commencement of the nurse practitioner model. Reading this recently, and then seeing how far we've come, despite the fact that it's taken almost 25 years, I think it's testament to the strength the determination of nurses and midwives, the ANMF, the College of Midwives and the College of Nurse Practitioners, who have all been lobbying government for changes. And how wonderful it is for the Albanese Government, particularly Minister Butler and Assistant Minister Kearney, to actually be heard by them and for these changes to occur. Tomorrow is a wonderful day for the nursing and midwifery profession. It is critical. We do need to make sure that we have not just sufficient numbers and growing numbers, which we do have, which is wonderful. But of course, we need the opportunity for these wonderful skilled nurses and midwives to be employed, as well as those who choose to commence their own business. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you to all our nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives who are here today. And I do want to acknowledge those that have come before us who've been part of this lobbying, part of this determined campaign to have nurses and midwives recognised professionally for the qualifications, the experience and the extraordinary skills that they possess. And it's really wonderful. Thank you very, very much.
 
COLLEGE OF MIDWIVES CEO, HELEN WHITE: This is an auspicious day for midwifery and for nurse practitioners. We have had a decade long barrier to working autonomously as endorsed midwives. The midwives have a postgraduate qualification, they are well qualified profession. It's really important for women to be able to access care, and the collaborative arrangement has been a barrier for women to access midwifery care. Midwifery continuity of care provides the best health outcomes for women. It is better value than fragmented care, and it's really important that we're able to access care all over Australia and regional and rural locations as well. What we've often found is that it's very difficult for women and endorse midwives to have a collaborative arrangement with medical practitioners, particularly in rural and regional locations where there are fewer GPs and GP obstetricians. This will allow more women to access midwifery continuity of care in more locations. And it will allow endorsed midwives and enable them to work to full scope of practice. We also, this year, with the Albanese Government, have had a $56.5 million investment in MBS items for endorsed midwives. And that is a fantastic initiative which will allow more women to access longer postnatal consultations. They'll be able to have perinatal mental health consultations, they'll be able to have a birthing brief, and they'll be able to have access to continuity of care. It's really important for endorsed midwives to have access to these options and the reduction for collaborative arrangements as well. We'd like to thank very much the Albanese Government for providing access to care and also enabling endorsed midwives, finally, after 12 years, to have access to autonomous care for them. Thank you.
 
COLLEGE OF NURSES CEO, LEANNE BOASE: Thank you Helen for that, and I'd like to thank Minister Butler, Assistant Minister Kearney, for all the hard work they've done. And I also want to acknowledge our Alison McMillan, our Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer and the Department of Health. And I want to thank Lisa Fitzpatrick for hosting us today as well. It's wonderful to be here today. This is a big day. We've been waiting a long time the removal of the collaborative arrangements was certainly not simple. It took a lot of work. It's taken 18 months of solid work to remove these.
 
An important point, though, is this removal of this requirement is crucial for people. It is about nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives, but it is about people accessing healthcare, and that's why we have been fighting for this for a very long time. They will have access to the entitlements that they already pay for through the tax system. They will have access, particularly people who are struggling to access healthcare, will have better rebates, Medicare rebates available, and more medicines will be subsidised. I'm joined today by quite a few nurse practitioners who are working in private practice, including those who are starting and operating their own businesses, particularly in areas to reach people who really struggle to access healthcare. I'm with them. I'm one of those. I'm a practicing nurse practitioner, and I own my own clinic, and we all support each other to continue extending health services to people who need it. This is a really big day for us. Nurse practitioners and endorse midwives will continue to work the same way clinically. After tomorrow, however, they will no longer need this collaborative arrangement in order for people to access subsidies, and that's a crucial point. I'm also looking forward to working with the Albanese Government on the remainder of the nurse practitioner workforce plan, which will see additional changes coming through so that people can better access nurse practitioners in Australia. Thank you again.