The new Labor Government in New South Wales faces calls to step up its climate ambitions, and to address Aboriginal health, rural health, wider health workforce issues and gambling harms, reports Alison Barrett.
Alison Barrett writes:
New Labor Premier Chris Minns and his interim ministry including Health Minister Ryan Park have been sworn in as vote-counting continues amid the possibility of a minority government.
Addressing healthcare will be one of the new Government’s priorities, who will reportedly begin drafting terms of reference for a Royal Commission into NSW’s health services in the coming weeks, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
“NSW has voted for a fresh start for NSW, and to put people at the heart of government – to invest in the human capital that runs our essential services,” Minns said in a statement.
“There’s not a moment to lose in delivering on our plans, particularly for essential workers and essential services in health and education.”
A Croakey survey of health leaders suggests the new Government has its work cut out to improve conditions for healthcare staff, the struggling healthcare system and ultimately, the health and wellbeing of the people of New South Wales.
Health leaders called for significant and targeted commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people, including strengthening the Aboriginal health workforce, implementation of the Closing the Gap framework and mental health strategy, while centring Aboriginal people in decisions.
“It is critical that Aboriginal people are at the forefront of the new Government’s policy efforts, this will ensure a collaborative approach to achieving health equity for Aboriginal people,” the Aboriginal Health & Medical Research Council (AH&MRC) told Croakey.
Acknowledging a relatively silent election campaign on issues that matter for people with disability, writer and advocate El Gibbs calls for the new Government to address basic accessibility options for housing, as well as justice reform.
Experts also called for real action on climate change and to take priority, including the immediate cessation of new fossil fuel projects and the introduction of cashless gambling card.
Now that all mainland states and territories have a Labor government, there is some optimism about the possibilities this creates for meaningful reform. However, according to the experience of former public servant Charles Maskell-Knight, this may not affect “the prospects of national health reform”.
Additionally, as CEO of Healthy Communities Foundation Australia Mark Burdack and CEO of Consumers Health Australia Dr Elizabeth Deveny point out, people generally do not care which government pays for which service, as long as they can access coordinated healthcare when they need it.
Regardless, many of the leaders called for state and federal government collaboration to tackle big health issues in NSW and across the country now.
Aboriginal people at the forefront
Policy Team, Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council
The AH&MRC congratulates the Labor Government on their election victory and are committed to work with them to improve health outcomes for Aboriginal communities. ALP has made several commitments to a ‘Fresh Start Plan’ for healthcare, which will include strengthening rural and regional areas with 500 new paramedics and workforce incentives for rural and regional GPs to support the engagement of nurses, allied health, and other health professionals.
Whilst the AH&MRC applauds the Labor Government’s commitment to a Fresh Start Plan for healthcare, we believe there needs to be a targeted commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people.
Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) across the country have continued to deliver high-quality integrated primary health care to Aboriginal communities despite the ongoing challenges they face. As the preferred primary healthcare provider for Aboriginal people, it is crucial that the new Government prioritise strengthening the Aboriginal health workforce and more broadly, the ACCHO sector in their rollout of the Fresh Start Plan for healthcare.
It is critical that Aboriginal people are at the forefront of the new Government’s policy efforts, this will ensure a collaborative approach to achieving health equity for Aboriginal people.
The AH&MRC is committed to working in genuine partnership with the Labor Government to develop policies and programs that will improve health outcomes for Aboriginal communities.
AH&MRC post-election media release.
Prioritise Closing the Gap
Professor Megan Williams, Wiradjuri, Head of Girra Maa Indigenous Health Discipline, Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney; Chair of Croakey Health Media
The Labor Party should keep an eye on the Bathurst electorate, which has increased its National Party hold yet again. Labor needs to keep the Nationals accountable, be firm in bending to them and not believe the narrative that the Nationals are for people in the Country. There’s a big population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Bathurst Nationals electorate; will there be unity or blocks to achieving self-determination, equity in social and health outcomes?
Labor should prioritise for action implementation of the Closing the Gap framework and other commitments like the Aboriginal Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2020-25. The mental health strategy includes commitments to holistic healthcare, partnerships and other foundational activities that will improve many areas of life for all of NSW.
Accessible housing and justice reform
El Gibbs, award-winning writer and disability advocate
The election of the new Labor Government means it is time to take urgent action to make sure disabled people are equal.
Their first move must be to adopt basic accessibility measures for new housing, so disabled people can find a home. Disabled people who aren’t eligible for the NDIS have no support, nothing, in NSW, and this is hugely harmful and damaging. Fixing this gap across all our public services is essential and long overdue.
Policies of the previous Government meant that too many disabled people are ending up in prison. The new Government needs to work with justice reform initiatives, led by First Nations people, to stop disabled people being put in jail.
Read Gibbs’ pre-election article here.
Significant action on gambling reform
Carol Bennett, CEO for Alliance for Gambling Reform
The incoming Minns Government (and it’s not yet clear whether it will have a majority) have a mandate for change in many critical policy areas, but they should not assume business as usual or fiddling around the edges on gambling reform is in their electoral interests or in the interests of the people of NSW who they have been elected to serve.
Many MPs now know that supporting meaningful gambling reform can be an election winner. Many of the candidates who stood on a platform of gambling reform increased their winning margins significantly.
While the ALP proposed a trial of cashless gambling on 500 of the state’s 90,000 poker machines, it doesn’t mean that they will be able to delay the need for sweeping gambling reform in NSW – especially with the independents Alex Grenwich, Greg Piper, Joe McGirr and Helen Dalton determined to keep gambling reform high on the priority list in their negotiations with government.
Serving NSW well means taking real action to reduce the unacceptably high toll gambling is taking on individuals, families, communities and workplaces right across NSW.
At the very least, given the results in this election, we expect the cashless gambling card will continue to be strongly pushed in both the lower and upper houses of the NSW Parliament.
With NSW the centre of Australia’s title as the world’s biggest gambling losers by more than 40 percent on poker machines than any country in the world, much more needs to be done to reduce the level of gambling harm.
See Bennett’s pre-election article here.
Active partnership in climate and health
Roland Sapsford, CEO of Climate and Health Alliance
Sapsford said he looked forward to continuing leadership on climate and health from the new Labor Government.
The previous NSW Government actively supported climate and health action. The new Government has a great opportunity to build on this work and show real leadership at a state level. Many health districts and health institutions in NSW are members of the Global Green and Healthy Hospitals network.
Action is underway at the local level across NSW, and we have every reason to believe this will be strengthened and continued under the new Government.
Action on climate and health is an urgent issue that goes beyond party politics. We look forward to working with the new Government on a science-based approach to creating a resilient, sustainable and low-emissions health system in NSW, and look forward to the new Government being an active partner in developing and implementing an ambitious national health and climate strategy.
Disappointing climate campaign
Dr Nick Williams, Doctors for the Environment Australia NSW Co-Chair
Despite the climate and health crisis we are currently facing, it was disappointing to see that climate action policy was not a prominent component of the NSW election campaign.
It seems that the newly-elected State Labor Government will adopt a “business as usual” approach (50 percent reduction in carbon emissions on 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero by 2050), and miss an opportunity to build upon the work by the Liberal Party’s Matt Kean to create a more ambitious climate change policy that aligns with the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
What is required are deep emissions cuts and a rapid phase out of fossil fuels, such as coal, gas and oil. Instead, as early as election night – in response to questions from David Speers and Sarah Ferguson during the ABC election coverage – the new Minister for the Environment and Heritage Penny Sharpe spoke of plans to approve projects such as the Narrabri Gas Project and reconsider the planned closure of coal-fired power plants.
Failure to achieve greater carbon emission reductions, including the approval of new coal and gas projects, will inevitably mean we will exceed 1.5°C global warming and will subsequently experience further healthcare associated consequences including increased hospital presentations, mental illness and deaths attributable to climate change.
Advice for the incoming Government on climate and health: Listen to the scientists and health organisations and act now!
We urge not only the incoming Minns’ Labor Government, but all sides of government, to recognise climate change as the greatest threat to health we face, and to develop economic and regulatory policy to support deep emissions reductions.
We encourage the Minns’ Government to put aside politics and work with the Greens, Independents and Opposition to develop a bipartisan climate action plan that meets, if not exceeds, the requirements detailed in the IPCC report.
Insufficient action will lead to a temperature rise above 2°C, with catastrophic impacts on human health along with the environment and the economy. The vulnerable will be most affected, the young, elderly, the poor and those with health problems. The need for ambitious action is urgent, in this term of government.
Respect the evidence on climate change
Dr Patrick Harris, Director of the Centre for Health Equity Training, Research and Evaluation at UNSW, and Rachel Rowe, PhD candidate at UNSW School of Population Health and PHAA NSW branch committee member
What does the election of the Labor Party mean for climate action in NSW?
Unclear – it is too early to tell whether Labor will prioritise climate action. Particularly pressing is their support for new fossil fuel projects, which are massive carbon bombs if allowed to go ahead.
Labor has committed to legislating a net zero target by 2050, with legislative targets considered across the whole of government. Labor has promised to legislate a new independent commission to assess progress on climate targets. Labor had better commitments to renewable energy than the Coalition prior to the election, and demand for renewables is only going to increase.
As of today it looks like Labor will form a minority government and so will need to negotiate with the Greens and independents. That means big projects like the Narrabri gas project might be halted. There was also an important pre-election push by independents to consider climate impacts in all new planning developments.
The federal Labor Government agreeing to an absolute cap on carbon emissions is likely to force the NSW Government to look closely on whether to approve projects.
Labor is likely to keep telling us that “we couldn’t possibly do without new coal and gas” right up until the point when we achieve this new reality.
What do you think the new Government should prioritise for action on climate and fossil fuels?
Respect the evidence and work with communities and industry to ensure an immediate transition away from fossil fuels. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reiterated its call for all countries to immediately halt all new fossil fuel developments and expansions. The Lancet countdown in 2022 similarly cautioned how health is at the mercy of fossil fuel addiction. Labor has committed to renewable energy, but also needs to commit to no new fossil fuel projects.
While the call from independents to amend legislation to better consider climate impacts is okay, the reality is that the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act that legislates planning and project assessment is no longer fit for purpose in the face of the climate emergency.
Will Labor prioritise public health in its decisions on new coal and gas projects?
Evidence from public health research can play a stronger role in supporting better planning policy.
Currently the NSW Department of Planning and Environment processes to approve new and expanded coal and gas projects are not mandated to consider specific health and social impacts. Social impacts are currently a tick-box exercise without mandatory criteria. There are no specific health impact assessments. In order for public health evidence to count, planning assessment tools need to consider the health impacts of climate change.
Gone are the old days of only considering immediate air and noise pollution, or additional traffic on roads (while these things matter too). The public expects more rigor in decision-making.
The new Government needs to change the planning processes. Ways to do this:
- Include scope 3 emissions
- Use a concept of health and social impacts that responds to what current evidence already tells us (i.e. mental health, heat related mortality and morbidity, climate refugees). This should centre First Nations knowledges and concerns.
- Evaluate the health impacts of proposed mine/gas projects over a longer time frame.
These are just some of the levers the incoming Government can pull to put the brakes on.
Simpler and better would be to impose a ban on all new and expanded coal and gas, stop approving exploration licenses etc.
Read Harris and Rowe’s pre-election article here.
Address public hospital system
Jennifer Doggett, Croakey editor and Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development
Addressing the significant stress in the public hospital system should be the first priority for incoming Minister for Health Ryan Park. In the lead-up to the election, Park was careful not to over-promise, stating that it will take time to address the significant challenges facing NSW hospitals and that the community should not expect immediate results.
To ensure he and his Government retain the trust of the NSW community, Park should work with the hospital and broader health sector to develop a plan for incremental improvements over this term of government, focusing on some of the key challenges – such as workforce shortages – as well as the drivers of demand, including poor and inconsistent access to mental health care in the community and an inadequate and uncoordinated approach to preventive health.
At the national level, the election of a Labor Government in Australia’s most populous state brings all of mainland Australia under Labor governments at both the state and federal level. This creates the opportunity to develop a national approach to some of our most pressing health challenges, including widespread health workforce shortages, poor coordination across jurisdictional boundaries (in particular primary care, aged care and hospitals) and a fragmented approach to mental health.
Build and support healthcare workforce
Adjunct Professor Lesley Russell, a Croakey columnist
It is very clear that the top health priority for the new NSW Government must be to build and support the healthcare workforce. Wages, working conditions and staffing ratios are critical; the costs involved in lifting these should be offset by the costs of using contract labour, of worker burnout, and of reduced quality and safety of patient care.
State and federal governments should work together to address the maldistribution of the healthcare workforce and the particular needs of medically under-served communities. In particular, access to peri-natal care and birthing facilities should be made more readily available for women in NSW. This will require investments beyond the healthcare budget – for example: housing for healthcare professionals and transport assistance for patients.
These efforts will only be sustainable with workforce planning and education and training assistance.
The first NSW Health Minister’s first ask of the Federal Government should be for the re-establishment of a national independent health workforce agency and increased support for the education and training of the full range of needed healthcare professionals and workers, including those who can provide culturally safe and appropriate care for Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
What are the implications for health reform nationally and in NSW now that all mainland states and territories are Labor?
There are lots of possibilities – if political leaders at the local, state and territory and federal levels are brave enough to take them.
The key to what is possible as a consequence of this new political power will emerge around federal-state discussions over the National Health Reform Agreements under which federal funds flow to public hospitals and some other activities.
These are not due to expire until 30 June 2025, but in the wake of the loss of the additional federal funds provided by the Morrison Government over 2020-2022, during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are ongoing state and territory claims for increased funds to enable public hospitals to address waiting lists, bed shortages, and staffing issues.
Aside from the healthcare workforce issues outlined above (they are common across the nation) here are my key picks for action:
- Use the common political ideologies to get a solid legal and public health foundation for the new Australian Centre for Disease Control, with appropriate commitments for a national authority, including data collection and sharing, staffing and sustained funding.
- Trial some new ways to deliver and fund healthcare services across community-based care, acute care, sub-acute care and residential care. Do this using models appropriate for local conditions. It would be valuable to have some trials for more coordinated care services across borders such as Albury – Wodonga and the Tweed River area. How can new urgent care clinics be linked into local hospital and general practice / primary care services? And maybe also include residential aged care facilities in this?
- Make some joint government investments in community health centres, with salaried staff, minimal out-of-pocket costs, a community board, and agreements about what can be billed to Medicare as fee-for-service vs what is paid for by block / grant funding.
- Drive better collection, analysis, distribution and use of data (disaggregated by socio-economic status, geography, and – where appropriate – by race, ethnicity and disability) to assess progress against health, healthcare and Close the Gap targets.
I think you have to be a very idealistic optimist to believe that such actions will occur. But for the moment, I’m willing to be that optimist.
Increase healthcare worker wages
Charles Maskell-Knight PSM, regular Croakey contributor and former senior public servant in the Commonwealth Department of Health
Based on my experiences of working with states and territories under different political configurations over 25 years, I don’t think wall-to-wall Labor governments across the mainland will make any difference to the prospects of national health reform.
State and territory first ministers and health ministers will accept a deal with the Commonwealth if it is good for their state, and not otherwise – regardless of the political colour of the governments involved.
I think a priority for the NSW Government should be paying nurses and other hospital staff more to keep them in the system. Then it should engage with the Commonwealth to devise an urgent care network with facilities in the right place and with the right service mix to help keep people away from Emergency Departments.
Reduce the burden of COVID-19
Professor Raina MacIntyre, Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales
It would be good to see some action toward reducing the burden of COVID-19, which is the third highest cause of death in Australia and 12 times the national road toll.
We are also concerned about the chronic disease impact of COVID-19. Long-COVID is a serious concern for the community, public health professionals and healthcare systems, with rapidly accumulating evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has effects on many organ systems beyond the acute infection.
The term “Long-COVID” is defined by symptoms persisting for four weeks and up to months beyond the acute infection, but the cause of these symptoms may range from respiratory, cardiac, neurocognitive to immunological and other organ damage.
This virus is not a common cold and should not be dismissed as trivial. Anything we can do to reduce the burden of COVID-19 will reduce deaths and the future chronic disease burden caused by COVID.
Widespread access to testing, better surveillance and reporting of COVID, a campaign to increase booster rates, reinstating mandatory isolation for people who have COVID, use of masks in public spaces during epidemic waves and attention to safe indoor air will all reduce the burden of disease and death caused by COVID-19.
NSW could also apply pressure to make vaccination available for children under five years, who (unlike the US) cannot get vaccinated unless they have severe immunosuppression.
We do not know the long-term impact of repeated infections in our youngest children, but all the studies that have been done suggest we should be protecting them. In Denmark, where kids under five are unvaccinated, amongst all children, the rate of Long COVID was highest in this age group. The virus can kill heart muscle cells, affect the blood vessels, brain, the lungs and many other organs.
Invest in general practice
Dr Norman Swan, ABC broadcaster
They must keep and strengthen NSW’s impressive decentralised network of public and population health units.
A truly innovative state health department would recognise that they have to seriously invest in general practice beyond urgent care centres and the impressive NSW Lumos data system https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/lumos which links GP and hospital systems – to actually funding general practice to manage demand as only general practice can.
They could set up new models of general practice paying staff specialist salaries embedding them far more than they are in communities, designing them with GPs and consumers to make it easy rather than hard to work in teams and practise evidence-informed medicine.
They should not wait on the Federal Government to come to the party. The federal bureaucracy is not designed to run anything. That’s what state health departments do.
Giving pharmacists prescribing rights, setting up independent nurse practitioner services and all the other conga line of suggestions would only fragment the system. Nurse practitioners, practice nurses and pharmacists should be integral to primary health care, not another headache of disconnection.
Local solutions
Susanne Tegen, CEO of the National Rural Health Alliance
“First of all, from the National Rural Health Alliance perspective, and probably also from a personal perspective, it doesn’t matter who we work with. We just wish to work with entities that will actually make a real difference for rural and remote Australia,” Tegen told Croakey in a phone interview.
“I congratulate the new Government on wishing to addressing medical and health workforce shortages.”
Tegen told Croakey the Minns Government should collaborate with the Federal Government, NRHA and local entities and prioritise local, fit for purpose solutions requiring single employers, equity in pay and block funding.
“We actually need to make sure that the planning and action is with and at the grassroots,” Tegen said, emphasising the importance of including rural and remote people in decision making.
Tegen urged the State Government to address the additional costs faced by rural people if they must spend time in urban centres for medical or healthcare that they cannot receive in their local community, including accommodation and fuel. While some of these costs are partially reimbursed by the NSW Government Isolated Patients Travel and Accommodation Assistance Scheme, this is not sufficient to cover costs and lost income from time off work.
She urged the state government “to do something about it”.
See Tegen’s recent Croakey article on climate disruption in rural and remote Australia.
Implement recommendations of NSW inquiry into rural health
Mark Burdack, CEO Healthy Communities Foundation Australia
The NSW Labor Party has promised to implement all the recommendations of the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Health Outcomes in Remote, Rural and Regional Communities. This has the potential to fundamentally change the current trend of decline of rural and remote health services. Rural and remote people will be watching carefully to ensure that these recommendations are implemented as a top priority.
The ambition of rural and remote people for the first 100 days is for the new Health Minister to establish a NSW Rural and Remote Health Reform Taskforce. The new Taskforce must represent a balance of community (people from rural and remote areas who have lived experience) and industry (practitioners who live and work in rural and remote areas).
The definition of health industry should be expanded to include representatives of teachers, social workers, legal aid, police and all the other social assistance professionals who are the key to addressing social determinants of health. NSW Health and other departments (e.g. Education) should be tasked as advisors as part of a program of listening and learning from the people.
Rural and remote people would also like to see the appointment of a Rural and Remote Health Ombudsman or Commissioner as promised by the new Labor government to begin the process of working with the government to set guidelines for ensuring fair and non-discriminatory access to rural health services and to resolve complaints regarding unfair treatment of staff, patients and communities. The Ombudsman should be empowered to look at complaints dating back seven years so that matters raised in the Inquiry, or which have not been formally received, can be examined and resolved.
Within 12 months, rural and remote people would like to see the NSW Rural and Remote Health Reform Taskforce on behalf of the Minister engage in genuine community and stakeholder consultation, with the aim of developing a whole-of-government integrated plan for reform of rural and remote health and development. The Plan itself must be a people-centred, outcomes-based plan for the health and development of rural and remote people, not another institution-centred plan for hospitals.
Now that all mainland states and territories are Labor, what are the implications for health reform nationally and in NSW?
The National Cabinet process should work well regardless of who is in power in any State or Territory. At the end of the day, governments are judged on what they achieve for their citizens, not how cleverly they play the cost-shifting game.
As one former State Minister told me: ‘People don’t understand or care who is responsible for what level of health care. All they know is that they are sick and cannot access the care they need. They will blame whoever is closest. It’s the Minister who will ultimately lose their job if they are foolish enough to buy into cost-shifting game – not the public servants advising them’.
With Labor governments in every mainland State and Territory there is a unique opportunity for newer Health Ministers like Chris Picton in South Australia, Amber-Jade Sanderson in Western Australia, and Ryan Park in NSW to push for a new collaborative federalist approach to health that eschews the destructive culture of competition that has defined health policy since the creation of Medicare. We need to stop talking about people-centred care and start doing it.
We would like to see each state and territory (including one representing external territories) establish a Ministerial Rural and Remote Health Reform Taskforce that puts people at the centre of health planning, and which sends a representative to sit on a Commonwealth Ministerial Rural and Remote Health Reform Taskforce to act as a national coordinating group. This should be co-chaired by the Commonwealth Rural Health Commissioner and Regional Education Commissioner.
It doesn’t matter where you go, the problems of rural and remote health are the same. We need to recognise this and begin a new process that acknowledges that neither the States and Territories, or the Commonwealth, can fix these problems alone and that current bodies responsible for preventing this crisis have failed. We need, as former Minister for Regional Development Simon Crean used to say, a “bottom-up, joined-up” approach.
We know there are numerous models out there that work, but they are never bought to the attention of governments. The nice thing about talking directly to rural and remote people is that their only vested interest is better health outcomes for rural and remote people.
Hopefully governments now understand that doing more of the same, and relying on the same sources of advice, is not a solution. As Einstein said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
See Burdack’s pre-election article here.
Coordinated healthcare
Dr Elizabeth Deveny, CEO of Consumer Health Forum
Despite all the rhetoric about patient-centricity, Australia’s health system remains fragmented and very hard to navigate.
Consumers don’t care which government pays for what service – they just want their care to be coordinated and for all parts of the system to talk to each other.
Now that all state governments on the mainland and the Commonwealth government are aligned politically we hope consumers will see greater cooperation and integration across the health system.
CHF is also looking for tangible support so we can help consumers play a greater role in the design and implementation of any changes that impact them.
All Australians need a health system that works for them. After all, they are the ones who pay for it through their taxes.
Post-election media releases
Australian Medical Association NSW Branch: “There is an urgent need to recruit, train and retain doctors in the NSW public healthcare system”.
Australian College for Emergency Medicine: “The College acknowledges NSW Labor’s electoral pledges to enforce minimum safe staffing levels in public hospitals, invest in women’s health and expand hospital capacity, including inpatient beds and infrastructure, and will hold them to account to ensure these promises are implemented.”
NSW Nurses and Midwives Association: ““We will have plenty of work to do in holding the new Government to their election promises…”
Lock the Gate: ““We’re calling for the incoming Minns Government to urgently amend planning policies to put climate change considerations at the heart of any decisions and stop the approval of new coal and gas expansions.”
Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia: “Hospital pharmacy has long been under-resourced in NSW and we reiterate our support for NSW Labor’s $268 million Hospital Pharmacy Workforce Sustainability in NSW Public Hospitals proposal, which will fund over 600 positions in the pharmacy workforce each year. This will aid in expanding the scope of pharmacist practice in Emergency Departments to ease bed block and support patient flow.”
Australian College of Nursing: ““I welcome the Minns Labor Government’s ambitious target of employing an additional 1,200 nurses and midwives in the state over four years.
“It will be crucial that the Minns Government introduces a framework to ensures that there is an adequate workforce with the appropriate skill and skills mix across the new roles to support our profession deliver the care they are trained to give to benefit the health care system long-term.”
From Twitter
See previous articles in this ongoing Croakey series, #NSWVotesHealth2023.
