December 11, 2024

Nursing and Midwifery Board

Midwives urged to have their say in national survey

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Midwives are being invited to share their workplace experiences to help tackle challenges in the profession.

The Midwifery Futures Survey is open to all practicing midwives, those who are registered but not currently working as a midwife, and midwifery students.

This national study is part of The Midwifery Futures Project, which is funded by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia.

All responses will help shed light on the challenges and areas for improvement across the midwifery workforce and explore opportunities for future growth in the sector.

Researchers from the Burnet Institute, in partnership with The University of Technology Sydney and Curtin University, are leading this project.

This survey is open until the end of the month, and all responses will remain anonymous.

To take part, head to: www.tinyurl.com/midfxworkforce

Please contact midfx@burnet.edu.au if you have any questions about this study.

Tips for a speedy registration

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Towards the end of each year, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) receives a high volume of applications for new registrations.

As a new grad waiting to start work, it can be stressful if there’s a delay on your registration.

How to make sure your application isn’t held up

  • Read and make sure you understand the instructions.
  • Take your time and ensure you’ve submitted all required documentation in the format they require.
  • Make sure include you as much information as you can so it’s a quick assessment
  • When having documents certified, please follow the Australia Health Practitioner Regulation Agency’s (AHPRA) instruction, and note that the certification for documents containing photo identification is different from other documents.

The application process can be slowed if you:

  • do not supply all the correct information
  • don’t submit accompanying documentation in the specific format required

If you believe that you may need to make a declaration on your application, please contact the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association to seek prior advice.

You’ll be given the opportunity to upload new information to your registration application as and when required e.g. identification of a graduate program commencement date.

You should make your application for registration three months before you expect to complete your course. You do not need to wait until you have completed the course requirements to apply. Your education provider will let AHPRA know once you have successfully completed the course requirements.

The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association provides registration assistance to its student members. If you’re a NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association student member in need of support, you can contact them here.

CPD reprieve for nurses and midwives

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The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA), along with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra), have advised that they will not take action if a nurse or midwife declares that they could not meet their required CPD hours for the 2019-2020 registration period.

In a statement, Ahpra indicated that the COVID-19 crisis may mean that “some nurses and midwives may have trouble meeting the CPD requirements during this challenging time”. This has resulted in the NMBA providing a level of leniency for those unable to meet these requirements.

However, nurses and midwives should continue to improve upon their professional development, and log any CPD they have undertaken during this period. 

Nurses and midwives are reminded that the following learning opportunities may contribute to CPD hours:

  • COVID-19 in-services,
  • reading and reflecting on COVID-19 journal articles, and
  • COVID-19 infection control training – online training modules.

Ahpra has indicated that the NMBA may request for evidence of CPD for nurses and midwives who declare that they were unable to meet the recency of practice standard.

AHPRA temporarily returns 40,000 practitioners to health workforce during pandemic

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AHPRA returns over 40,000 health practitioners to the temporary pandemic response sub-register to support our critical health workforce during the emergency

As health services prepare for the expected surge in demand resulting from COVID-19, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and National Boards have announced a new pandemic sub-register to fast track the return to the workforce of experienced and qualified health practitioners.

Following the request from Australia’s Health Ministers to enable more health practitioners to quickly return to practice, Ahpra, the Medical Board of Australia, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia and the Pharmacy Board of Australia will establish a short-term pandemic response sub-register for the next 12 months.

This sub-register will enable doctors, nurses, midwives and pharmacists who previously held general or specialist registration and left the Register of practitioners or moved to non-practising registration in the past three years to return to practice. Only those who are properly qualified, competent and suitable will be returned to the register.

AHPRA will be contacting over 40,000 practitioners who meet these criteria to alert them that they will be added to this new sub-register.

Registration fees to increase for 2019-2020

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The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) has resolved to increase registration fees to $175, an increase of 3% from the previous registration period.

The annual renewal fee increase applied from September 2019, and will cover the registration period for most nurses and midwives of 1 June 2020 to 31 May 2021.

AHPRA CEO Martin Fletcher said that the fee increases were implemented to ensure that the regulators can respond to the increasing activity across the National Scheme.

“With over 744,000 practitioners registered [with AHPRA] and a significant increase in notifications, we work with each National Board to set fees that allow us to meet the expectations of the public and practitioners,” Mr Fletcher said.

“Registration fees fully cover all costs in regulating the professions included in the National Scheme”.

Registration fees are published annually, and fund the NMBA’s work in supporting registration, developing standards codes and guidelines, and investigating concerns raised about registered health practitioners. The scheme is entirely funded by fees, and receives no additional funding from Governments.

The case for more nurse prescribing

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Extending the scope of nurses and midwives to prescribe medicines would lead to more efficient and cost-effective ways of delivering patient care, say experts.

The only nurses who can currently prescribe medicines in Australia are nursing practitioners and midwives with an endorsement for scheduled medicines.

Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer Debra Thoms believes it’s time we opened up the debate about nurse and midwife prescribing more broadly.

Adjunct Professor Thoms described the issue in terms of giving patients safe and timely access to medicines in a background paper released by the Department of Health (DoH) earlier this year for a symposium on the issue.

“In order to ensure that the Australian community continues to receive high quality care, it is necessary to consider the contribution that nurses and midwives can make to the strategies and models of health service delivery across all sectors.

“Internationally there has been a steady increase in models of nurse prescribers within health systems and… within Australia we have seen specific roles incorporate prescribing.”

Professor Lisa Nissen, head of the clinical sciences school at QUT, told The Lamp that increasing nurse prescribing roles “can assist nursing professionals to work at the full scope of their practice, facilitating better access to care for patients, easier navigation of healthcare, and collaboration between health professionals”.

Professor Nissen has been an expert adviser for the National Prescribing Service on prescribing competency standards, and she’s been closely involved in the training and development of nurse practitioners who have been able to prescribe for more than 15 years.

In Professor Nissen’s view, nurse prescribing is about “putting patients across the whole sector with health professionals who can assist with the management of their medications.”

Changing Australia’s framework of prescribing medicine should mean giving patients access to “the right person with the appropriate skill set available in the right setting at the right time.”

Efficiency and cost-effectiveness a factor

As the DoH background paper notes: “Health systems worldwide are looking for ways to develop more efficient and effective models of service delivery designed to manage workforce shortages, improve access to medicines and increase patient choice”.

Nurse and midwife prescribing is already in place in the US, Sweden, UK, Canada, Ireland, and NZ. While prescribing medications has traditionally been the domain of the medical profession in Australia (with the exception of some midwives and nurse practitioners – see box) discussions are building about whether this is sustainable.

In 2015, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia commissioned a literature review to better understand the evidence around registered nurse and midwife prescribing. The benefits of nurse prescribing identified by the review included:

  • Enhancement of RN’s ‘skills’ and facilitating continuity of patient care
  • Improved access to timely treatment including medications
  • Improved cost effectiveness
  • Potential for improved relationships among RNs, medical practitioners and pharmacists
  • Opportunities for nurses to have increased professional recognition and respect, enhanced career development and increased nursing autonomy.

The review also found that patients generally appeared satisfied with RN prescribing in terms of accessibility, timeliness and convenience and quality of relationships with the RN. Several studies reported that a high proportion of patients who experienced RN prescribing had no preference in terms of who they see in future; an RN or medical practitioner.

Professor Nissen sees opportunities for nurses to develop and expand their skill base by offering prescribing services in a range of health areas “from paediatrics to aged care or mental health to oncology”.

With the right “systems to support people to operate in their scope of practice” the ability of nurses to care for patients through prescribing can be expanded, Professor Nissen says.

“Nurses and midwives already play a major role in the health sector around the management of medicines across a range of areas,” says Professor Nissen. “It is important that this opportunity is based on appropriate competency and training”.

 

Current nurse and midwife prescribing in Australia

Nurse prescribing was first introduced in Australia in 2000 with the creation of nurse practitioner (NP) roles. Now prescribing is established practice for midwives with an endorsement for scheduled medicines; other health professions in areas such as dentistry, podiatry, pharmacy, and optometry now hold varying authorisations to prescribe. Nurses and midwives who prescribe and manage medications are subject to Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) regulatory requirements, and they must complete an approved post-graduate education program.

Since 1 November 2010, NPs and midwives with a scheduled medicines endorsement have been able to prescribe medicines subsidised by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). Medicines that NPs and midwives may prescribe independently within the PBS are listed and others are identified as medicines NPs may prescribe for ‘continuing therapy only’ after a medical officer makes the first prescription.

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