Renee Coffey (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Griffith is home to one of the busiest health precincts in the country, and our workforce numbers reflect that, with more than 16½ thousand healthcare and social assistance workers across my electorate—the fourth highest in the country by percentage. Griffith is also home to some of Queensland's and our country's most important hospitals. The Princess Alexandra Hospital is a major teaching and research hospital, leading in major trauma care and home to Queensland's specialist adult spinal injuries rehabilitation unit. The Mater Hospital is a leader in obstetrics and provides specialist neonatal intensive care for some of our tiniest and sickest babies. I would like to shout out the Mater Foundation and also the work of the Mater Little Miracles. The Queensland Children's Hospital delivers specialist health services and care for kids and young people from right across the country, and our community also relies on the high-quality care and treatment provided by Greenslopes Private Hospital and St Vincent's private hospital.

So, when we talk about strengthening Medicare, improving access to care and pursuing better health outcomes, Griffith is not watching from the sidelines. We are living it, we are staffing it and we are relying on it. But we also see the strain. We see it in how hard it can be to get a timely appointment in primary care. We see it in the pressure on emergency departments when people cannot get the right care early. We see it in aged care, where clinicians are working to keep residents stable, comfortable and safe. But the system can still create delays for matters that should be straightforward.

The Albanese government made an election commitment to prioritise scope-of-practice reforms for health professionals because we know these reforms deliver real benefits to Australian patients through improved access to health care. This bill, the Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025, is an important step in delivering on that commitment. It will help ensure Australians have better access to the affordable medicines they need when they need them, and it backs our registered nurses to deliver safe, high-quality care, particularly in primary care and aged care.

This bill does two things. First, it amends the National Health Act to allow registered nurses endorsed against the relevant registration standard to be authorised prescribers. This enables them to prescribe certain medicines that can be supplied under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and attract Commonwealth subsidy. That matters because the PBS is what makes medicines affordable for millions of Australians. If someone can receive the right prescription but cannot access it affordably, we are not improving health outcomes.

Second, it strengthens integrity by amending the Health Insurance Act so that registered nurses providing these prescribing services are included under the Professional Services Review Scheme. As a result, designated registered nurse prescribing under the PBS will be subject to the same peer review safeguards that protect Medicare and protect the PBS, reinforcing public confidence in a system that must always put safety first. Designated registered nurse prescribing enables safe, timely and effective prescribing by registered nurses, extending their scope of practice, particularly in primary care and aged-care settings.

This reform builds on careful design and consultation already taken right across the sector. In December 2024, health ministers approved a new registration standard that allows suitably qualified registered nurses to become designated registered nurse prescribers. That standard took effect on 30 September last year. Importantly, the first cohort of designated registered nurse prescribers are expected to complete their education, receive endorsement and begin prescribing from July this year.

Our communities know when our health system is not keeping up. They experience it when a script needs renewal and the next available appointment is too far away. They experience it when an older person in aged care needs a timely medicines review. They experience it when someone is discharged from hospital and needs coordinated follow-up to stay well rather than ending right back in emergency once again.

In those settings, registered nurses are already doing extraordinary work: assessing, monitoring, educating, coordinating care and keeping people safe. But too often the system still forces extra steps, extra appointments and extra delays just to obtain a prescription, even where the care is already structured and the clinical pathway is clear. Designated registered nurse prescribing helps close that gap. It supports earlier, more seamless care, reduces avoidable waits and helps patients receive the right care in the right setting. And it supports affordability. By enabling PBS prescribing by authorised, appropriately endorsed registered nurses, this bill ensures the medicines they prescribe can attract Commonwealth subsidy and remain affordable for patients.

Expanding access must never mean compromising safety. This reform is designed around education, endorsement and governance. It is grounded in a registration standard approved by health ministers, and it operates within a defined scope, with safeguards around which medicines can be prescribed. The bill provides that the minister will determine which pharmaceutical benefits can be prescribed by authorised nurse prescribers and requires the minister to have regard to advice from the independent Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. And, by bringing these prescribing services within the Professional Services Review Scheme, the bill strengthens accountability and protects the PBS.

This bill is also part of a broader, consistent agenda from this Labor government to strengthen Medicare, improve health outcomes and deliver real cost-of-living relief. That includes more free medicines and more cheaper medicines sooner, with a 25 per cent reduction in the number of scripts a concessional patient must fill before the PBS Safety Net kicks in; the largest cut to the cost of medicines—just $25 as of this year—in the history of the PBS; 60-day prescriptions, saving time and money for millions of Australians with an ongoing health condition, now covering more than 300 medicines; and freezing the cost of PBS medicines, with co-payments not rising with inflation, for all Australians for the first time in 25 years. And, with 1800MEDICARE, the Albanese government is making it easier for Australians to access healthcare when and where they need it.

I'm also proud that the new Medicare urgent care clinic in Coorparoo, which I have secured for our community, will open in the coming weeks. This is in addition to the new urgent care clinic we opened in Carina just 43 days ago, which joined the existing network of 16 urgent care clinics right across Queensland, including the South Brisbane urgent care clinic in Woolloongabba, which has been servicing our community for some time now. Ninety Medicare urgent care clinics are in operation across Australia, which have already seen more than 2.4 million presentations since the sites first opened in June 2023—including just under half a million presentations in Queensland alone.

It was a Labor government that built Medicare, and it is only a Labor government who will continue to protect and strengthen Medicare. When medicines are cheaper, families feel that relief immediately. When the system enables the health workforce to operate effectively, patients receive care sooner and avoidable hospital presentations reduce.

I acknowledge the contribution of my good friend the Queensland state member for Greenslopes, Joe Kelly MP. Joe and I have known each other for many years now, and it's a joy to work closely together with him to support the constituents we jointly represent in that part of my electorate. Joe brings decades of nursing experience to public life, and he speaks about health care with the credibility that comes from having been there on the ward with patients alongside colleagues who carry the load day after day. I'm so honoured that I have colleagues here in the House who also bring such rich experience into this place.

Like some in elected positions, including in this place, Joe has stayed close to the front line so that his perspective stays grounded in the realities of care and the pressures our workforce is facing. When he talks about why scope-of-practice reform matters, he puts it very simply: 'Every time I do a shift, I work with caring, passionate, highly-qualified and skilled nurses with decades of experience. Supporting nurses to use their skills to the fullest extent will be fantastic for patients.' I have to say, that is typical Joe Kelly; his focus is always on patients, on the community and on constituents.

I could not agree more: this bill is about backing that skill, backing that experience and making it easier for Australians to get the care and medicines they need sooner, safely, affordably and closer to home. It reflects the direction identified through the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce and the work to unleash the potential of our health workforce, with patients at the very centre.

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