A submission from Australian nursing’s Big Four calls for further federal support to ensure the success of the Thriving Kids program.
Four major nursing organisations have collaborated on a submission to the federal government calling for the removal of regulatory barriers and introduction of sustainable funding models prior to the commencement of Thriving Kids.
The Australian College of Nursing (ACN), Australian College of Children & Young People’s Nurses (ACCYPN), Maternal, Child & Family Health Nurses Australia (MCaFHNA), and Professional Association of Nurses in Developmental Disability Australia (PANDDA) all co-signed the submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the Thriving Kids initiative.
Significant gaps in both workforce capacity and service delivery have been touted by the joint nurse organisation as the reasoning behind the submission along with helping to ensure success for the Thriving Kids initiative.
Data from the 2024 Australian Early Development Census showed that just over half (52.9%) of Australian children were developmentally adept across all five developmental domains. Almost one in four children (23.5%) were listed as vulnerable, the highest rate ever recorded.
These failings were cited in the submission as the reason to expand the scope of nurses, with suggestions of removing regulatory and funding barriers for nurse practitioners.
The joint nurse submission argued that these reforms would “enable more sustainable and equitable models of care, particularly in primary health settings, and better support early childhood development”.
Telehealth access was mentioned as one of these regulatory barriers.
Nurse practitioners have not been subject to the telehealth established relationship rule thus far; this will change from November.
“Nurses working in primary care have frequent engagement with children during immunisation visits and early childhood checks, but we need more targeted investment in paediatric screening,” Acting ACN CEO Zach Byfield said.
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“Further, we must remove barriers preventing nurse practitioners from working to their full scope of practice in paediatric care.”
Integrating multi-disciplinary care into the Thriving Kids program was also pushed as a solution to alleviate workforce shortages and related burden.
“The workforce shortages in primary care are a significant problem nationally, and I think that more interprofessional care is needed to address these needs, particularly for children and families,” ACCYPN director Alicia Bell told The Medical Republic.
“What we’re looking at with the Thriving Kids response is child development in general is not being assessed well.
“Where there are developmental concerns, these could certainly be picked up earlier by more standardised screening in that primary care context.
“That’s something where I think nurses could help in doing that screening to then identify where there are needs that then need additional support or additional assessment.”
