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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 11 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3198 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

Nurse practitioner schemes allow GPs greater time, as they work in collaboration with nurses and nurse practitioners, to focus on what they are trained for. My motion, which I discussed with other members of the Assembly, makes this clear. The motion calls for the Minister for Health to establish a nurse practitioner accreditation program similar in scope to that running across the border in New South Wales. Because it can take a substantial length of time to establish such a system, I also hope the government will explore the idea of accrediting ACT nurses through the New South Wales program, which has been running with much success, until a scheme of our own is up and running.

I commend this motion to the Assembly.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for Community Affairs and Minister for Women) (11.12): Mr Speaker, the government supports the thrust of the motion Ms Dundas has moved, to the extent that it highlights an important issue and draws attention to a very significant trial that has been undertaken in the ACT in relation to the potential for establishing or developing a nurse practitioner accreditation program in the ACT. It is appropriate that we talk about that.

As Ms Dundas has said, the ACT has just completed a trial of nurse practitioners, but the report of the steering committee that was established to oversight the conduct of the trial has not been completed and has not been received by the government. That is the difficulty I have with Ms Dundas' motion.

Ms Dundas is asking the government to implement a nurse practitioner program in the ACT on the basis of a trial that was undertaken but evaluation of which has not yet been completed. The government has not received an evaluation report. The motion pre-empts the trial and its outcomes. It is not appropriate for this Assembly to call on the government to implement a nurse accreditation program on the basis of a trial that is yet to be evaluated and reported on to the government.

It is not appropriate to ask me as the Minister for Health to implement a nurse accreditation program here based on a model that has been utilised in Sydney. The assumption is that despite the fact that we have conducted a trial and put in place an evaluation methodology we should ignore the evaluation, not wait for a report and not look at the outcomes or findings of the evaluation to inform our decision-making.

I applaud Ms Dundas' interest in this issue. It is a very important issue. I have no reason to believe that it will not produce the results Ms Dundas ascribes to it and hopes it will produce. I would have the same view as Ms Dundas. There are potentially enormous benefits in the implementation of a nurse practitioner program in the ACT. It has the potential to achieve some of the benefits that are ascribed to it by others and have been described by Ms Dundas. So I would hope that we will be in a position to proceed positively with nurse practitioners in the ACT.

As Ms Dundas has said, New South Wales has created three nurse practitioner positions in the Sydney metropolitan area. Such developments should be considered, but they need to be considered in light of the findings of the ACT trial, and we would need to proceed on the basis of what model would suit the specific circumstances in the ACT. We would need to hold discussions with the University of Canberra, which is the major centre in the ACT for the training and education of nurses, and with the Nurses Board of the ACT.

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