The Hon Nicola Roxon Mp

THE HON NICOLA ROXON MP

MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING

MEDIA RELEASE– 16MARCH 2010

A LANDMARK DAY FOR AUSTRALIAN NURSES AND MIDWIVES

Today the Senate has passed historic legislation that provides long deserved recognition of Australia’s highly skilled nurses and midwives.

These reforms will give nurse practitioners and midwives access to the Medical Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) for the first time.

These changes are a key plank in the Rudd Government’s health reform plans, funded through the$120.5 million maternity reform package. This reform improves the choices for Australian women to access high quality, safe maternity care as well as providing support for our talented midwives. .

The legislation will also establish a new Government-supported professional indemnity scheme for eligible midwives.

Nurse practitioners are also at last to be supported to work to their full potential and provide care in the most appropriate settings, such as aged care facilities, primary care settings or people’s homes. At a cost of nearly $60 million, this will expand services to many families who currently struggle to access health care.

This legislation is a key part of the Government’s workforce strategy which has:

Funded over 1000 additional undergraduate nursing and midwifery university places a year;

Supported20 full time equivalentnursepractitioner and 20 midwifery scholarships to build the workforce for the future, with the total Commonwealth health scholarships increasing to over 6000 since 2007.

Nurse practitioners and midwives wishing to provide treatment under Medicare and prescribe medicines under the PBS will need to demonstrate that they meet certain professional eligibility requirements and that they have appropriate collaborative arrangements in place.

The new professional indemnity scheme for eligible midwives will be available from 1 July 2010 and the new Medicare and PBS arrangements will be available from 1 November 2010.

Today marks a new era for our health workforce – ensuring smarter use of our skilled workforce, and more encouragement to work in multi-disciplinary teams.

This will help deliver better health and better results for patients.

As a Government, we are extremely proud to be delivering these changes – providing new and innovative options for thousands of women and the community.

For more information contact the Minister’s office on 026277 7220