About the initiative
Strengthening the role of nurses helps to deliver primary health care and meet the future health care needs of the Australian community. It raises awareness of the role of nurse practitioners, and reviews undergraduate preparation for nurses in Australia to explore improvements to the system. The initiative also focuses on any factors that may be affecting nurses entering the workforce. This is part of the Stronger Rural Health Strategy.
Why it is important
Primary health care is often the first point of contact people have with the health care system. The nursing workforce has a wide range of skills and experience in caring for the health needs of the Australian community.
Delivering a stronger role for nurses in primary health care will have clinical and economic benefits, including:
- improving access to health care
- enabling longer consultations
- improving case management and care coordination
- enhancing teamwork across practices
- improving the cost-effectiveness of practices
- removing duplication of work
- reducing the need for hospitalisations and emergency department use
- improving patient health care results and health.
Goals
This initiative is strengthening the nursing workforce by:
- promoting a central role for nurses in delivering team-based and multidisciplinary care for patients with chronic and complex conditions
- improving care in rural and remote settings
- supporting nurses to move into primary health care
- testing new models of care
- providing better education and training about primary health care to the nursing workforce.
Meeting our goals
The program includes 3 elements:
Nursing in Primary Health Care Program
We fund Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association to run the Nursing in Primary Health Care program.
The program includes 3 elements:
- Transition to Practice Program, which supports both newly graduated and experienced nurses to transition into primary health care.
- Building Nurse Capacity Clinics, which recruit and support primary health care organisations to start models of care delivered by teams of nurses.
- Chronic Disease Management and Healthy Ageing workshops, which provide education and training on the management of chronic diseases and healthy ageing for nurses working in primary health care.
Independent review of nursing education
We commissioned the Educating the Nurse of the Future, Report of the Independent Review of Nursing Education to review educational preparation of nurses. This considers factors that influence people to choose nursing as an occupation.
The report presents 26 recommendations. These include that the National Nursing and Midwifery Advisory Education Network will monitor the realisation of the review’s recommendations. You can read the Australian Government’s response to the report.
Who we work with
To deliver this initiative, we work with the:
- Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association.
- Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment.