Nurse practitioners for rural and remote Australia: Creating opportunities for better health in the bush

[Extract] Controversy has dogged the introduction of nurse practitioner (NP) positions in rural and remote Australia, despite the need for an increase in flexible and affordable health-care services outside metropolitan areas. Ironically, it was the need for a new model of rural and remote health care that provided the impetus for developing the NP role in Australia in the late 1990s. Almost a decade after the first NP was authorised to practise in rural New South Wales, the number of endorsed NPs in rural and remote areas remains low relative to those practising in large regional and metropolitan hospitals. Indeed, the majority of new positions have been created in specialty areas of nursing.