On International Nurses Day (IND) 2026, the Australian College of Nursing (ACN) is calling on all governments to make investment in nursing a priority for a more efficient and effective health system that provides easy and equitable access to quality health services for all Australians.
Acting ACN CEO Dr Zachary Byfield said Australia will continue to produce nursing graduates who can’t find a job or leave their careers early unless a national strategy is put in place to guide the nursing workforce.
“At a time when productivity in health care has never been more important, we cannot continue to keep flying blind with our nursing workforce without nationally coordinated planning,” Dr Byfield said.
“We are wasting resources and robbing consumers of the best care when, where, and how they need it.”
The IND 2026 theme is Our Nurses. Our Future. Empowered Nurses Save Lives – a call for investment in the high-impact nursing profession, which is core to addressing the converging burdens on the health system of rising chronic conditions and an ageing population.
With Australia staring down a nursing workforce shortage of more than 70,000 by 2035, a plan is needed to guide the supply and distribution of nurses and enable nurses to work to the top of their skills and ability across the health system.
Dr Byfield said the Health Department has developed a National Nursing Workforce Strategy – it is now time to release and implement it.
“The consequences of continuing to operate without a strategy are stark,” Dr Byfield said.
“We are producing nursing graduates, but we do not have enough new graduate roles for them to go into.
“We are also seeing far too many early-career nurses abandon their clinical roles because of a lack of support and direction in the high-pressure field of nursing.”
ACN is calling for the federal government to consider the strategies in the ACN Pre-Budget Submission as high-impact initiatives for productivity and health. These include:
- Reversing declining vaccination rates: Establishing nurse-led vaccination clinics and creating a Nurse Payment Administrator to improve access and restore immunisation coverage;
- Retaining and growing the nursing workforce to prevent a projected shortfall of more than 70,000 nurses by 2035 by introducing transition programs and retirement support;
- Expanding medicine access: Scaling registered nurse prescribing by educating 2,500 RN prescribers to improve medication access in underserved areas;
- Unlocking primary care capacity: Establishing nurse-led primary care practices and providing baseline practice payments to improve access;
- Reducing aged care hospital admissions: Providing scholarships for aged care nurses and scaling nurse practitioner-led models to prevent avoidable hospitalisations; and
- Expanding hospital capacity: Using National Productivity Fund payments to incentivise states and territories to enable advanced nursing roles, including nurse anaesthetists and nurse endoscopists.
Dr Byfield said business-as-usual health care is under real pressure.
“The Australian College of Nursing believes we can spend the health budget more effectively to achieve better outcomes, including by enabling nurses to work to their full scope of practice.”
The ACN Pre-Budget Submission is at https://www.acn.edu.au/advocacy-policy/2026-2027-pre-budget-submission
Contact
e: acn.media@acn.edu.au
