Reform tracker · Australia
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.
Status note: The final report was delivered on 30 October 2024. We have found no item-by-item government response; the agenda is being pursued through Health Ministers and Treasurers, including a $60m incentive the Treasurer announced in August 2026 (reported from his press release).
The review found almost all primary-care professions face barriers to working at full scope "unrelated to their education (skills and knowledge) and competence", and that removing them would improve access.
Led by Professor Mark Cormack, the review (“Unleashing the Potential of our Health Workforce”) made 18 recommendations to remove legislative, funding and employment barriers that stop professions such as nurses, pharmacists and allied health practitioners from working at their full scope. They include reviewing and harmonising state drugs-and-poisons laws, which govern who may prescribe and supply medicines.
In our view, this is the clearest statement of Australia’s “top of scope” agenda. It has turned scope expansion into fiscal policy: from August 2026, money from the National Productivity Fund is reportedly on offer to states that remove scope barriers.
The review’s central finding, that many barriers are unrelated to competence, deserves a serious answer, and doctors’ groups, like every profession involved, have their own interests in how scope is set. The equally serious question is how each expansion will be evaluated, and by whom, before it becomes permanent. See pharmacist prescribing for how that has gone so far.
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.