The Commonwealth response to a committee report on addressing barriers to sexual, maternity and reproductive healthcare is here – but don’t expect any surprises.
The federal government has either fully supported or leant in-principle support to all 36 recommendations from a senate report into women’s health, many of which were tied into its recently announced $573 women’s health package.
The Ending the postcode lottery – Addressing barriers to sexual, maternity and reproductive healthcare in Australia report was delivered in May 2023.
A response from the government was due before the end of 2023 but was not released until last week.
Full support was given to 15 recommendations, which included better Medicare funding for long-acting reversable contraceptive (LARC) insertion and removal, allowing nurse practitioners and registered midwives to prescribe medical abortion and evaluating the how a wider scope of practice for non-doctors could impact women’s health.
Increased funding for LARCs was announced earlier this month.
Nurse practitioners and registered midwives are subject to the individual laws of different states and territories, but the federal-level TGA approval for nurse practitioners and midwives to prescribe MS-2 Step has been in place since late 2023.
Scope of practice had already been assessed as part of the Scope of Practice Review, which reported last year.
Related
It appears that most of the initiatives “supported” by the government have either been addressed in the gap between the report being tabled and the response, or as part of the recent funding announcements.
Among the GP-relevant initiatives supported in-principle were recommendations for a new Medicare item covering contraceptive counselling, a review of how Medicare supports medical abortion consults while also ensuring patient privacy and increasing support for GPs to train in LARC removal and insertion.
Again, some of these, like the training for contraceptive insertion, have already been actioned as part of recent funding announcements.
“The government will provide a further $17.5 million over three years from 2025-26 and ongoing funding of $6.6 million per annum from 2028-29 to create LARC Centres of Training Excellence,” the government response said.
“The LARC Centres of Training Excellence will leverage existing infrastructure to provide training for health professionals in LARC insertion and removal.
“This training will enhance health professionals’ ability to deliver appropriate care to a patient for LARC insertion and removal, including effective pain management options.”
Additional recommendations made by The Greens, which related to no-cost abortion services and the legal definition of infertility, were simply “noted”.
This story was updated on 20/02/25 to better reflect the timing of funding announcements.
