Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I worked on the Albanese government's health legislation amendment to remove the requirement for a collaborative arrangement, a barrier that prevents nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives from prescribing Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme medicines and providing services under Medicare. This amendment will open up more opportunities to deliver new and innovative ways to improve primary care across Tasmania, making a better healthcare system by improving access to care, particularly for those living in rural and regional areas. This will be a game changer for nurse practitioners and midwives, as they will now be able to work to their full scope of practice.

This amendment supports innovative models of care involving nurse practitioners and multidisciplinary teams already underway in Tasmania, like the Cygnet Family Practice trial involving nurse practitioners Kerrie Duggan and Ali Spicer. It's working. It's benefiting Tasmanian health consumers, as they get the right care at the right time, some at home. It's spreading the workload by freeing up our doctors, ambulances, hospitals and emergency departments so they can take care of more serious health presentations. It's reducing costs and addressing the cost of living through free care.

There are lots of examples, and I don't have time today to share all of those, but what these services now do is provide quality place based care in sustainable ways. Being able to prescribe medication means that their patients can get on the PBS, which they couldn't do before without a doctor's approval, and that they can get all of that important MBS subsidy when they do provide care to patients. This amendment will make way for trialling innovative models of care by unleashing our health workforce. I believe this is a game changer for Tasmania in rural and regional communities, where GPs are in short supply.

After a decade of neglect, I commend the Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care, Ged Kearney, for her foresight and passion to expand our health workforce's capability to deliver better health for Australians now and into the future.