Healthcare professionals are calling for more support to increase opportunities allowing nurses to better use their high levels of knowledge and skillsets, to help improve and provide better healthcare in Australia.

May 12 is International Nurses Day, with the 2025 theme focusing on Caring for nurses strengthens our economies.

According to the Australian College of Nursing, 54 per cent of the Australian health workforce is made up of nurses, nurse practitioners, and midwives.

Perth-based clinical nurse Natarsha Wilson has been a nurse for five years, and says she feels nurses are becoming more supportive of each other, but they aren’t being given the opportunities to work to their full potential and scope of practice.

“I’d like to see nurses continue with their research in their chosen fields, to enable us to prove that there is a benefit of having nurse-run clinics, nurses being able to do more to their capacity,” she says.

“If you look over into the UK and some other countries as well, nurses are actually running their own clinics.”

The Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association describes nurse clinics as an ‘alternative model of care delivery where the nurse is the primary provider of care for the patient’, with responsibility and accountability remaining with the nurses for patient care.

Nurse-run clinics are an example where nurses would be able to work to their full scope of practice, which according to the Australian College of Nursing, refers to specific responsibilities and activities which nurses are trained and educated to do through their relative qualifications and experiences. Barriers such as outdated regulations, inconsistent policies and organisational restrictions are stopping nurses from achieving this.

The 2024 Workforce survey produced by the Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association says, focus groups who took part in their survey highlighted nurses are feeling ‘undervalued’ and ‘underutilised’. The survey is used to gather insights from primary healthcare workers in order to allow policymakers to make effective decisions to help improve Australia’s healthcare system.

Chief executive of the Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association Ken Griffin says the data headlining the survey shows a waste of highly trained health professionals in Australia.

“At the moment, we’re training world class health professionals, but we aren’t letting them use all of their skills, and that’s a bit silly,” he says.

Mr Griffin says nurse-led clinics are an example of where nurses could work to their full scope of practice and alleviate pressures from general practitioners.

He says ensuring nurses are provided with a working environment where they can work to their full potential will also improve the Australian healthcare workforce because nurses will be more inclined to stay longer.

“They’re two times more likely to leave in the next two to five years if they’re not being able to use all their skills to keep people healthy,” he says.

Head of the Curtin School of Nursing, Professor Tracey Moroney says the feeling of being undervalued, and not having the opportunity for nurses to work using their full scope of practice has contributed to dissatisfaction in the workforce.

“They feel they have restrictions on the way that they work and that actually makes them feel less valued to the healthcare system,” she says.

Professor Moroney says while some people still view nursing as the ‘handmaiden of the medical profession’, now is the time for nurses to reframe the conversation.

“We graduate nurses who have got a grounding in science, research, and evidence-based practice, and the knowledge and skill set to be able to determine and plan care and action, but that’s often ignored,” she says.

Professor Moroney says government reforms and changes in legislation needs to happen to allow nurses to do the work they are trained to do.

She says as a profession, registered nurse prescribing is a skill set they are bringing in, where nurses would be able to prescribe in partnership after they have worked in the field for three years after graduating, and have completed a special graduate certificate course. However, she says nurses won’t be able to use this skill unless changes are made.

“At the moment, that can’t happen because there have not been changes to the legislation that allows that to happen,” she says.

She says governments engaging in a registered nurse workforce, and providing the opportunity for nurses to work to their full capacities would also save millions of dollars and free up doctors to do the work they need to do.

Ms Wilson says for International Nurses Day, she wants to see nurses come together to empower and foster a collaborative and supportive work environment.

“We do advocate all the time for our patients so let’s advocate for each other and show the support and lets all celebrate together because we’ve all become nurses for a reason, because we want to care for people,” she says.