In October 2023, the federal government launched Unleashing the Potential of our Health Workforce – scope of practice review.

The independent review will examine the barriers and incentives faced by health practitioners working to their scope of practice (SoP) in primary healthcare (PHC). The review aims to deliver better health outcomes for people as well as greater job satisfaction, recruitment and retention of health practitioners including nurses.

According to the International Council of Nurses, PHC is the cornerstone of health systems across the planet with equity and access essential to the health and wellbeing of all people.1 In Australia, access to PHC has become more difficult, especially in rural and remote communities. Support for nurses to work to their SoP is key to improving people’s access to PHC, but this requires funding and legislative reform. Nurses must remain engaged, professionally, and politically to identify and address the barriers that prevent and the enablers that allow them to work to their SoP in PHC.

Nurses already lead in PHC settings, working with communities, identifying needs, and implementing services. However, nurses’ SoP is often restricted by approaches to healthcare funding, policies, service provision, and the requirement for collaborative arrangements between nurse practitioners (NP) and general practitioners (GP). People in Australian communities are feeling the result of this constraint due to a shortage of independent PHC providers. Nurses working as independent practitioners, under block funding (or similar) models, will increase the number of primary healthcare providers, giving the public a choice of practitioner and improving access to affordable and appropriate services, driven by a human right to healthcare, not profits.

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