Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:15): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Does the minister agree with the comments of Professor Elizabeth Dabars, CEO of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, who says that the Liberal government has no plans to deal with nurses leaving the health system?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:15): Was this in relation to no plans for nurses leaving the health system?

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: Yes.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I have had ongoing discussions with the ANMF and the nursing leadership within SA Health in relation to the refreshment of our nurse workforce. One of the areas that is of particular concern is the area of mental health. If the honourable member is correctly reporting the comments of Associate Professor Dabars, I would dispute them, because the fact of the matter is, we are rolling out plans to build the nursing workforce, particularly in the area of mental health nursing.

If my memory serves me correctly, the average mental health nurse in South Australia is in their 50s. Considering I am in that category, I don't regard that as old, but in terms of the sustainability of the workforce it is a concern because we need to be refreshing the workforce so that it is sustainable. The practical impact of the relative age of mental health nurses is highlighted by some of the recent challenges we have had in staffing facilities.

For example, after the Royal Adelaide Hospital mental health unit was unable to be moved from Glenside because of the problems with the duress alarms, this government made the decision to use them as general mental health beds until the psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) transferred. It wasn't possible for us to use all 10 beds because we weren't able to recruit the staff to open them. Similarly, the temporary short stay mental health unit at Lyell McEwin was opened much later than we hoped because of problems with recruitment.

In terms of the nursing workforce, one area of particular focus will be the mental health nursing workforce. The government has a mental health nursing workforce strategy, which aims to support, attract and retain mental health nursing staff. On Monday 12 November 2018, there was a mental health nursing collaborative round table, which in fact the ANMF was invited to.

The LHNs are continuing intensive mental health recruitment to fill existing vacancies. LHNs continue to support nurses to gain mental health qualifications via the graduate diploma program, and in terms of green shoots, I am sure the council will welcome the fact that UniSA reports that they have received higher levels of applications for their graduate diploma in mental health nursing. My understanding is that it is 80 this year, compared with 40 last year.

The issue of mental health nursing recruitment was specifically an issue that I discussed with the ANMF in a recent meeting, so I am sure the honourable member's quote cannot be representative because the ANMF and I have been discussing these very issues recently.