Media Release
5 November 2010
Nurse practitioners welcome - but will rural health teams survive?
People will now be able to claim Medicare refunds for visits to nurse practitioners - a decade after
they were first registered in Australia. The new legislation will also mean that patients can obtain
certain medications prescribed by nurse practitioners under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
As a result
more nurse practitioners are likely to begin to fill the gaps in firstline health care by
providing services in rural and remote areas.
“Whatever one’s view about the prospect of a greater number of nurse practitioners working in
community settings,
rather than in emergency
medicine
in public hospitals,
patients will
have
greater access to expert health care and spend less time waiting to see a GP. People who need to
travel for more specialised treatment can also expect better coordinated care as a result of the
work done locally by a nurse practitioner,” said Dr Jenny May, Chair of the National Rural Health
Alliance.
“For these reasons nurse practitioners
will be welcome additions to the rural health care team.
Team practice is not new to them – they already work within their scope of practice with
doctors
and allied health professionals in hospitals and clinics
to
undertake health assessments,
order
diagnostic tests, prescribe medicines, refer patients to other health care providers and coordinate
health care for patients.
“But this week’s good news on nurse practitioners must not obscure the fact that there is a serious
shortage of doctors in many parts of the country,” Dr May said. “We need to make sure that nurse
practitioners are encouraged and supported to fill gaps in rural areas where one of the key
members of the team – the doctor – is in short supply.”
“We expect there will soon be some new Medicare items for telehealth consultations and it will be
important that they are
available to
support
nurse practitioners as well as doctors in rural and
remote communities. However, telehealth cannot replace first line health care on the ground and
so far there is little evidence that the policies and incentives are in place to encourage a sufficient
number of new medical graduates to the Australian bush.”
The Alliance plans to
redouble its efforts to encourage Government to provide training,
placements and continuing professional development for medical trainees and existing GPs to
work in rural, regional and remote areas. It will also ask the Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, to
put in place a new program in next year’s Budget to provide specific incentives for nurse
practitioners to work in towns without
a resident GP
–
and to provide funding to support the
training of new nurse practitioners.
Contacts
Dr Jenny May - Chair: 0427 885 337
Marshall Wilson - Media: 0425 624 100
NEWS 
