The Australian College of Nursing says the passage of landmark legislation giving patients access to the PBS for registered-nurse-prescribed medicines for the first time is a major milestone that will improve access to equitable, timely, and high-quality medication prescribing across Australia.
The Senate has passed the Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025, which allows endorsed designated registered nurse prescribers to prescribe under the PBS — meaning patients will pay subsidised PBS prices for nurse-prescribed medicines, just as they do for medicines prescribed by a doctor.
“This is a major milestone,” said ACN Chief Executive Officer, Adjunct Professor Kathryn Zeitz FACN. “The introduction of RN prescribing is the most significant advance in nursing’s role in Australia in a generation. The Parliament has backed nurses to work to their full scope of practice. In doing so, it’s backed every Australian who relies on timely access to the medicines they need. We thank the
parliamentarians who recognised the value nurses bring and voted to make this reform a reality.”
The reform is expected to deliver significant benefits for people in rural, regional and remote communities, First Nations populations, palliative care patients, and those seeking sexual and reproductive health services – groups that have long faced barriers to timely, affordable care.
The passage of this legislation follows a Senate committee inquiry and more than a decade of advocacy from the nursing profession.
ACN cautions there remains additional work to ensure nurses can use this endorsement to enable their patients to get equitable access to medications. ACN is calling on the Government to urgently address the following outstanding matters:
Funding for primary care and aged care: There is currently no funding mechanism to enable registered nurse prescribing in aged care and primary care settings – where nurses are often the main healthcare professional.
Clarity over formulary: The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee has been considering which medications designated registered nurse prescribers may prescribe – registered nurses are graduating from prescribing courses, and it is critical they know which medications they are eligible to prescribe.
Access to pathology: Nurse prescribers must be able to order the pathology that safe, high-quality prescribing depends on, with patients and providers able to access the appropriate Medicare rebates.”ACN stands ready to work with the Government to implement solutions to this.
Transparency on implementation: Nurses need clear and timely information from the Commonwealth and from states and territories about implementation timelines and the settings in which the endorsement will be supported. This transparency is essential so that nurses can make informed decisions about their careers and about taking up this endorsement.
Registered nurses are the largest health professional group in Australia, the most trusted and the most geographically distributed.
“This is a win for health equity,” said Adjunct Professor Zeitz. “Nurses work across almost every healthcare setting in the country, and this reform means their patients can access prescriptions in a timely, safe, affordable, and equitable way.”
“Nurses have been asking for this reform for over a decade. The evidence shows nurse prescribing improves patient outcomes, increases satisfaction with care, and reduces the burden on our hospitals and GPs. We need to keep working to make sure that evidence drives health care delivery models for communities right across Australia.”
Contact
e: acn.media@acn.edu.au
