APNA’s Nurse Sector Strategy Roundtable

4 November 2022

APNA held its first-ever regular PHC Nurse Sector Strategy Roundtable in Canberra this week. This event was a high-level session organized on the sidelines of APNA’s Canberra Roadshow.

The Albanese Government is moving into high gear on a number of fronts in regard to health sector reform (such as the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce (SMT). The Canberra Roadshow proved to be an ideal opportunity to invite nursing and health sector peak bodies, authorities, and policy makers and other stakeholders to discuss and find common ground on the issues being examined by the SMT, as well as influence the topics to be discussed at the next Taskforce meeting.

The event was a big success, with APNA’s CEO Ken Griffin and President Karen Booth joined by representatives from Family Planning NSW, the ANMF, AHHA, ACT PHN, AHPA, Australian College of Paramedicine, ACMHN, the Heart Foundation, the NSWRDN and CATSINaM, amongst other organisations.  

This meeting proved to be an excellent opportunity to discuss the topics to be discussed at the next Taskforce meeting. Other topics discussed included:

• identifying what data Governments need to effectively plan for future health workforce in the future, and in particular identify data gaps essential to workforce planning  
• identifying solutions that better enable the health workforce to work to full scope of practice as part of multidisciplinary team based care (focusing on general practice, aged care including home care, schools, and community sector).   

The Roundtable also provided an opportunity to find common ground with allied organisations on the most pressing issues impacting on patient care and primary health care nursing, as well as examine innovative solutions for how they can be addressed. 

This event was the first of what will be a regular health-sector-wide strategy session. If you would like your organsation to be involved in the next Strategy Roundtable, please contact APNA at advocacy@apna.asn.au