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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Tuesday, 9 March 2004) . . Page.. 882 ..

positions and creates a classification structure that rewards additional training and experience.

It is unfortunate that this bill does not deal with funding and classification aspects of the initiative, so we will need to wait for the government’s budget and policy announcements to see if there is evidence of a commitment to pay workers adequately in this new profession. This bill creates a lot of additional responsibilities such as requirements to notify the Chief Health Officer of certain diseases or pay a penalty, so a rise in remuneration is clearly warranted.

If the government really gets behind the establishment of nurse practitioners, it could help alleviate Canberra’s worsening GP shortage. We know that this is an issue of great concern. We know that in many instances doctors’ time is consumed by tasks that our university trained nurses are well skilled to perform, and nurses are insulted that they are not recognised as able to perform these roles. Allowing nurses to use the full scope of their skills has the potential to lower the costs of public health. With the provision of expert wound care, length of hospital stays, particularly among the elderly, will hopefully decrease. Mental health clients have the potential to benefit as well. During the ACT trial of nurse practitioners, clients spent an average of 37 minutes per consultation with a nurse practitioner, which is longer than most doctors can currently allow. Extended consultations have great potential to benefit patients.

As the Minister for Health acknowledged in his tabling speech, we trail New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia in establishing these positions. I think we also need to add Victoria to that list, Minister. It is good to see that the ACT is finally catching up. Considering the long delay between the conclusion of the ACT trial and the introduction of this legislation, I would have liked to have seen the government agree to accredit ACT nurses through the New South Wales program until an ACT system was up and running. However, we are finally debating legislation and I hope the necessary regulations are also ready for introduction so that we will have no further delays.

The ACT Democrats are proud to support the introduction of nurse practitioners into the ACT medical system, and we are looking for a commitment to make sure that those nurse practitioners are operating in reality. There is no need for us to wait until we have the first bunch of masters graduates coming out of the University of Canberra. There are ways that we could have nurse practitioners operating here in the ACT a lot sooner than that graduating class. We need to move this piece of legislation forward into reality so that we can help our doctors and our nurses as soon as possible.

MR SPEAKER: On your behalf, members, I welcome students from Marist year 6.

MR CORBELL (11.29): The Nurse Practitioners Legislation Amendment Bill 2003 is the next step to endorsing this extended nursing role and is consistent with the future direction for the profession as outlined by the national review of nursing education and recommendation 34 of the Senate inquiry into nursing. As members would now know, under the proposed legislative amendments nurse practitioners will be registered nurses who practise at an expanded level within an authorised scope of practice and who are authorised to use the title “nurse practitioner”. Use of the title without authorisation will be an offence under the Nurses Act 1988. The registration and discipline of nurse

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