THE REVIEW OF HIGHER
EDUCATION FINANCING
AND POLICY
From
The Australian Nursing Federation (Vic. Branch)
The major roles of higher education in Australia is to provide the opportunity to develop the body of intellectual knowledge to both individuals and the community and to place Australia soundly in the international intellectual arena.
With the growth of science and technology and the increase in complexity of modern society, new fields of study have opened up to the community via universities. Although nursing could not be seen as a new science, technological advances and the explosion of nursing and care models throughout the world has led to an extraordinary increase in nursing knowledge and complexity. This has resulted in the transfer of nurse preparation to higher education with the view to ensuring nurses are prepared adequately to guarantee safe practice. Preparation to degree levels is seen by the nursing profession as a minimum standard. This view was affirmed in the recent review of nurse education in Australia.
A community should expect that basic rights will be afforded it by its government. One of these basic rights is access to quality health care. This can only be provided in a system that is not only adequately funded but is provided by health professionals well grounded in knowledge and skills required to provide that health care.
The attributes required by nurses to operate effectively in their professional lives are:
1. Knowledge of clinical treatments for specific illnesses.
2. Awareness of and competence in emerging health technology.
3. Skilled in counselling both patients and other nurses and members of the health care team.
4. Ability to supervise other members of the health care team in the care of patients.
5. An understanding of multiculturalism and the ability to relate to people of many differing cultural backgrounds.
6. Ability to effectively manage both human and material resources.
7. The capacity to observe, act and interact appropriately with a whole person, not just the illness or condition they exhibit.
These skills and attributes can no longer be provided in an apprenticeship type system, hence the transfer of nurse education to the higher education sector.
The requirement of nurses to keep abreast with advancing technology and treatments will increase the demand on the provision of higher education for the profession over the next ten years. This will be at both undergraduate and post graduate levels and will become more obvious as increasing speciality care areas are developed.
The health care industry is one that is experiencing considerable growth, and as the population continues to age, the need for provision of health care will expand.
Nursing faculties within Australian universities have not kept pace with the health industry’s demand for registered nurses and this has resulted in a shortfall of adequate nursing numbers at both general and specialist level. This will continue to have significant impact on workforce needs.
A recent workforce survey undertaken in Victoria shows a shortfall of 516 effective full time positions in 412 facilities, this figure if translated across the state results in one thousand unfilled nursing positions. The major areas noted in the study as experiencing particular difficulty in recruitment of nurses are:
Although some of the nursing workforce shortages in Victoria can be attributed to specific cuts to the health budget, Victorian nurses are also extremely concerned at the significant cost of undertaking post graduate studies in specialist nursing domains.
Nurses practice in the interest of public safety, and nurses who practice for remuneration are required to be registered by regulatory bodies situated in each state. It is a requirement of the regulatory authorities that any nurse seeking registration be suitably educated and prepared particularly to undertake that role. Nursing regulatory bodies in Australia recognise an undergraduate nursing degree as appropriate for this preparation and in fact may refuse accreditation to faculties of nursing and therefore non registration of its graduates if in the Boards’ view that professional preparation is not inadequate.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for nursing faculties to provide adequate preparation in the presence of budget deficiencies. And the continued attack of tenure for nurse academics, can result in undue pressure from external and internal vested interests.
As previously stated, nurses practice in the interest of public safety and provide a service to society equally with other essential services such as the police and army. Society will not allow nurse education to disappear and those who argue that reverting to hospital based training for nurses only argue a case of cost shifting from education budgets to health budgets wgeb in fact this would increase the cost of nurse education, as student nurses would have to be paid full salaries.
The guidelines also ask submissions to address the mix of public and private funding for higher education.
The ANF (Vic. Branch) believe there would be little private financial benefit in being a nurse, potential university students do not gravitate to nursing as they do for example law and medicine where the generous remunerations in these professions provides a greater incentive to the practitioner. Nor does private industry as such have a vested interest in the preparation of nurses. Privately owned hospitals may well have a vested interest and they assist universities in nurse preparation by providing access to students undertaking clinical preparation, as does the public sector.
If public funding of nurse education ceased, it would disappear. Significantly, the two private universities Bond and Notre Dame do not consider nursing faculties viable.
All of the health professions base their practice on research, it is no different for nursing. Nursing is a clinically oriented profession and the importance of evidence based research can not be overstated. The transfer of nurse education to the higher education sector has provided a much needed stimulus to nursing research in Australia. There is the spread of a research culture throughout the profession and many practicing nurses believe their role encompasses the gathering of data and contribution to nursing research. The continued availability of nurse researcher preparation through the university process is essential for the continual addition of nursing knowledge and evidence to nursing practice.
CONCLUSION
The ANF (Vic. Branch) appreciates the difficult task facing the review committee and thank them for the opportunity to provide this submission. We believe that there is not just one solution to the funding issue, however we consider nursing to be unique in many ways and we appreciate the opportunity to comment on the diversity and complexity of nursing. We urge you to keep the profession informed of the progress of the Review Committee.