Nurse practitioners and midwives: doctor collaboration requirement removed
Since November 2024, nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives can bill Medicare and prescribe PBS medicines without a formal collaborative arrangement with a doctor.
Profession
Nursing & midwifery
Nurse practitioners and registered nurses are gaining prescribing rights and public funding, and in New Zealand the Nursing Council itself has been reshaped by the Minister.
Reforms
Scope of Practice Review (the Cormack review)
An independent review made 18 recommendations to let primary-care professions work to their full scope. The federal government is now offering states $60m to remove barriers.
Public funding for nurse practitioner and pharmacist primary care
Under a new federal interpretation of the Canada Health Act, medically necessary care that nurse practitioners, pharmacists and midwives provide in place of a doctor is to be publicly funded. The policy took effect in April 2026, with penalties from April 2027. Ontario missed the deadline.
Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Amendment Bill
New Zealand's bill would let the Health Minister direct the health regulators on policy and let a ministerial committee overturn registration refusals. Parliament has since been dissolved for the November 2026 election.
No reforms tracked for this country yet.
Explainers & analysis
The case for top-of-scope reform
The strongest version of the argument for letting nurses, pharmacists and others do more, written from the reformers' own sources.
Nothing written for this country yet.
Library
Unleashing the Potential of our Health Workforce: Scope of Practice Review
Professor Mark Cormack's review found almost all primary-care professions face barriers to full scope that are unrelated to their education and competence, and made 18 recommendations to remove them.
Why it matters: A central document in Australia's 'top of scope' agenda, now backed by a $60m incentive for states.
No library items for this country yet.