Needs assess­ment

In 2024, nurs­es and mid­wives in rur­al and remote com­mu­ni­ties told us that they were experiencing:

• exces­sive­ly high lev­els of agency nurse use
• high work­force turnover
• unsus­tain­able health ser­vice costs
• absence of a nation­al sup­port­ed work­force pathway
• lack of sup­port­ed clin­i­cal supervision
• lim­it­ed sup­port for remote health managers
• ongo­ing safe­ty and secu­ri­ty issues.

We’ve out­lined some of our key respons­es below. See what’s next and how you can get involved!

A bold new plan

We have under­tak­en sec­tor con­sul­ta­tion and devel­oped a com­pre­hen­sive sub­mis­sion to the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment for a nation­al­ly stan­dard­ised and recog­nised advanced gen­er­al­ist nurs­ing and mid­wifery prac­tice path­way to deliv­er up to 1,000 new nurs­es and mid­wives across rur­al and remote Aus­tralia. Clin­i­cal Reflec­tive Super­vi­sion is embed­ded with­in the path­way to build resilience and sta­bil­i­ty into our work­force pipeline. 

Join us in advo­cat­ing for change – read our full sub­mis­sion and help us push for a stronger, more sus­tain­able rur­al and remote health work­force. You can help by shar­ing the sub­mis­sion with col­leagues and friends and advo­cat­ing for its adop­tion through­out your net­works and employ­ing organisations.

We also pre­pared a sep­a­rate sub­mis­sion that builds on the key Aus­tralian nurs­ing and mid­wifery peak’s calls for com­pre­hen­sive, employ­er-fund­ed clin­i­cal super­vi­sion for all nurs­es and mid­wives (access via link at end
of this article).

This is an impor­tant tool for organ­i­sa­tions to strength­en nurs­ing and mid­wifery prac­tice through sup­port­ed reflec­tion and clin­i­cal guid­ance from expe­ri­enced, well-trained nurs­ing and mid­wifery clin­i­cal super­vi­sors. Antic­i­pat­ed out­comes include improved work­force sat­is­fac­tion, inter­pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ships, and work­force reten­tion.
In addi­tion, we have advo­cat­ed for build­ing remote nurs­ing and mid­wifery lead­er­ship capa­bil­i­ty and sys­tem improve­ments in safe­ty and secu­ri­ty. This infor­ma­tion was also used to deter­mine pri­or­i­ties and oppor­tu­ni­ties to bet­ter sup­port the rur­al and remote health work­force through our edu­ca­tion pro­grams, advo­ca­cy efforts, well­be­ing sup­port, and nurs­ing and mid­wifery career pathways.

A uni­fied voice for change

Recent­ly we have joined part­ner nurs­ing peaks to advo­cate for the Scope of Prac­tice Review rec­om­men­da­tions and oth­er reforms, includ­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of the Nation­al Rur­al and Remote Nurs­ing Gen­er­al­ist Frame­work, which ful­ly utilis­es nurs­es, nurse prac­ti­tion­ers, and mid­wives to improve health out­comes for all Aus­tralians, regard­less of their postcode. 

Last Novem­ber, as part of this unit­ed voice of nurs­ing and mid­wifery peaks, we par­tic­i­pat­ed in an event in Par­lia­ment House titled Par­lia­men­tary Friends of Nurses.

This was an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case the breadth of nurs­ing prac­tice and advo­cate for mean­ing­ful pri­ma­ry health care reform. The event launched a cam­paign to empow­er nurs­es, nurse prac­ti­tion­ers, mid­wives, and allied health pro­fes­sion­als to work to their full scope of practice.

What’s next

Through­out 2025 we will con­tin­ue to work togeth­er with nurs­ing and mid­wifery peaks to advo­cate for the needs of the rur­al and remote health work­force. Please sup­port us by shar­ing sub­mis­sions, talk­ing with your inter­pro­fes­sion­al col­leagues and ask­ing for their advo­ca­cy and sup­port for these much-need­ed changes. 

Final­ly, we thank those of you who con­tin­ue to share your expe­ri­ences and sup­port us in our work. Your voic­es are instru­men­tal in shap­ing our strat­e­gy, pol­i­cy and advocacy.