CDU to bring back Diploma of Nursing to help boost healthcare workforce

Charles Darwin University will restore the Diploma of Nursing to help boost the Territory’s healthcare workforce.

CHARLES Darwin University will restore the Diploma of Nursing and base it in Alice Springs, in an attempt to help boost the Territory’s healthcare workforce.

CDU Vice-Chancellor Scott Bowman said the diploma would be offered face-to-face in Alice Springs and online across the Territory and Australia to enrolled nursing students.

The one-year, full-time diploma allows students to work in areas such as aged care and to work as a nurse while pursuing the next academic stage, the Bachelor of Nursing.

The diploma is expected to be offered from 2023.

Professor Bowman said expanding the Territory’s healthcare workforce was a priority for the university.

“One of the things holding back healthcare services in the Northern Territory is the health workforce,” he said.

“It’s very difficult to get people in the health profession to find them. So as a university, we’ve got to get much more involved in that and we’ve got to do that across the board.”

Prof Bowman said CDU was also planning to expand degree and training opportunities in Alice Springs.

The only other provider of the Diploma of Nursing in the NT is private trainer Fox Education and Consultancy.

CDU previously offered the diploma but their accreditation for the course expired in 2019.

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Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation NT branch secretary Cath Hatcher, who has advocated for the return of the diploma, said it would provide critical health opportunities to Territorians.

“Getting more nurses on the ground, whether with the Diploma of Nursing or Bachelor of Nursing, is so important in the Territory but also the rest of Australia in the times that we’re living in at the moment with staff shortages,” she said. “It gives a great opportunity to anyone who does their diploma to work in any of the hospital ward units or aged care facilities throughout the Territory or throughout Australia.

“Due to Covid, to people conducting swabs for testing or giving vaccinations it’s taken people in different areas of work and therefore left us very stretched with nurses across all levels of care.

“Hopefully it’s going to relieve some of the pressures within nursing.”