Page 2440 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 30 July 2019
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have had proper emergency treatment. Importantly, you would have had doctors, nurses and allied health professionals working collaboratively in a team. These highly respected, highly qualified, highly trained nurses who have so many skills and qualifications could then work to their full scope of practice.
If nurses are isolated from those collaborative teams and doctors and nurses who work so well together, they cannot work to their scope of practice. That is the point. We want to respect those nurses. We want to get the most out of them that we can and not put them in a position where they are limited in what they can do.
What a fantastic topic for an MPI. The Canberra Liberals have the greatest respect for our nurses, but we want to see the rhetoric from that lot over the chamber—including the part-time minister, who has this job as a bit of a part-time gig on top of her other loads—match some action and bring about changes in outcomes. If you look at the outcomes, they are a disaster. The culture is toxic. As I said, all the results we see are trending downwards. Let us see some results, because that is how we will give nurses the respect they deserve.
MS STEPHEN-SMITH (Kurrajong—Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Children, Youth and Families, Minister for Disability, Minister for Employment and Workplace Safety, Minister for Health, Minister for Urban Renewal) (4.17): I thank Mr Gupta for bringing this important matter to the Assembly and I congratulate him again on his election and his first day here in the chamber with us. As we have all recognised, we have a highly capable nursing workforce here in Canberra. Every day and night, nurses working in our walk-in centres and hospitals provide expert care across a variety of health disciplines.
ACT Labor has always backed our nurses, Madam Deputy Speaker. This Labor government continues to grow our nursing workforce and continues to ensure that our nurses are supported in their practice. Canberra cannot be a healthy city without the highly skilled nurses who are at the front line of our public health system, both in our public hospitals and in our community health facilities. Madam Deputy Speaker, I note that in question time you asked about front-line positions. In response, I can advise that between 2017-18 and 2018-19 we saw a six per cent increase in the number of nurses and midwives across our community. We have continued to grow that investment through the 2019-20 budget as well.
I was pleased recently to be able to attend the fifth anniversary of the opening of our first nurse-led walk-in centre, as one of my first events as the newly minted health minister, and to speak with the nurses playing a pivotal role in this system. Walk-in centres provide better access to primary health care for the ACT community, where and when they need it, through a nurse-led model of care by nurse practitioners and advanced practice nurses.
I note that Mr Hanson said the Canberra Liberals were not intending to get rid of nurse-led walk-in centres and then said that they would be replaced by hospitals, which does seem to be getting rid of nurse-led walk-in centres and a nurse-led model of care by nurse practitioners and advanced practice nurses.
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