Nurses should assume traditional GP roles, says Mario Galea

“Nurses could and should assume roles traditionally held by General Practitioners. The issue of ‘role substitution’ in the local scenario needs to be further discussed,” Parliamentary Secretary for the Elderly Mario Galea said.

Galea was addressing the 6th Primary Health Conference, ‘Developing Nursing Roles in Primary Health Centre Care’.

Galea called for the extension and development of the nurse’s role, which may include, amongst others, work traditionally carried out by the doctor. He argued that the need for these developments is an issue that we can no longer ignore.  Furthermore this issue is crucial to any restructuring process which needs to be implemented.

Galea said that in the local context, the role of nurses working in the Primary Health Care sector is limited, while patient assessments and related decision making are mostly within the role of General Practitoners.  He said there were developments in the area, such as the establishment of the ‘Health Awareness Clinics’, where health needs assessments are carried out by nurses.

However, decision making, central to these assessments, such as those related to screening tests, are still within the role of the GP.

“The need for further nursing developments in the Primary Health Care sector can no longer wait.  Ways by which these developments could best be implemented need to be studied, taking into account the foreign context,” Galea said.

He said that such a move would call for a cultural change and added that nurses are academically and clinically prepared to assume more specialized and autonomous roles: “Yet they also need to be psychologically prepared to assume such roles.

“The general public should also be prepared and assured to accept the fact that they will be cared for by nurses. It is thus imperative that such a change needs to be well planned and most importantly it needs to be done gradually.”

Galea acknowledged that the implementation of extended nursing roles may seem challenging:  “Yet this should be the way forward to ensure accessible and affordable good quality care, allowing GPs and specialists more time to dedicate to more complicated and specialized care.”