AMA Qld wants more practice nurses

Australian Medical Association (AMA) Queensland is calling for governments to boost the number of practice nurses in Queensland to improve patient access to care.

AMA Queensland President, Dr Mason Stevenson, said ensuring practice nurses were employed throughout the state would be an immediate and cost-effective measure to improve the efficiency of general practice.

“A recent report funded by the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute found practice nurses helped take pressure off GPs, subsequently improving patient access to care,” Dr Stevenson said.

“Practice nurses are able to carry out a myriad of clinical tasks under the direction of a GP, allowing more time for GPs to see additional patients.

“If every practice had a practice nurse, it would allow each GP on average to see an additional 800 patients annually,” he said.

Dr Stevenson said there were currently 8,000 practice nurses employed in approximately 65% of general practices throughout Australia.

“Practice nurses are invaluable, but only general practices in rural, regional and outer suburban practices are eligible for government general practice nurse subsidies,” Dr Stevenson said.

We must remove these geographic restrictions to enable more general practices to employ practice nurses regardless of rurality.

“AMA also wants to see the Government expand the scope of tasks nurses can perform on behalf of doctors under the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS), including preventative health education.

“Boosting support for practice nurses would reduce the red tape burden on GPs, improve patient access to care and allow GPs additional time to train the junior doctors we need for the next generation of patients,” he siad.

In an article from the General Practice issue of the Medical Journal of Australia, Australian National University researcher, Dr Christine Phillips, and her co-authors identified six roles for nurses in general practice: patient carer, organiser, quality controller, problem solver, educator and agent of connectivity.

“Many of the nurses in our study were highly accomplished clinicians who expressed frustration at the limited clinical care they were able to provide in general practice,” Dr Phillips said.

“To realise the full potential of nurses’ skills, they need to be supported to expand their roles, not just because of workforce shortages, but because of the contribution they make to improving patient care”.