A Senate inquiry into the provision of general practitioner and related primary health services to outer metropolitan, rural, and regional Australians has released an interim report.
A final report is due by 30 June. In the meantime, there will be a Federal election. What difference might that make?
Alison Barrett writes:
Recommendations for an investigation of Medicare rebates for all levels of general practice consultation have been welcomed by the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP).
A Senate inquiry into the provision of general practitioner and related primary health services to outer metropolitan, rural and regional Australians “has validated our continual call for a new fairer funding model and structure of GP services, to benefit both GPs and Australians living outside metropolitan areas,” AMA President Dr Omar Khorshid said.
Also in support of the recommendation into Medicare rebates, RACGP President Professor Karen Price said:
“If more support is given to general practice we can help more patients in need and ease the burden on a health system already under immense pressure, including our hospitals. When rebates don’t keep pace with inflation, let alone the cost of providing high-quality care, practice viability suffers – particularly in areas of lower socio-economic status, and rural and remote areas. If practices are forced to close their doors, this in turn can lead to people ending up in a hospital bed for a condition that should have been taken care of by their usual GP.”
The interim report published this week acknowledged “the distribution of Australia’s primary care workforce in outer-metropolitan, regional, and rural Australia has been a critical issue for decades”.
Key issues influencing the maldistribution of the rural primary care workforce include the division of Federal and State responsibility for primary health, Medicare rebate freeze and demographic challenges with the Distribution Priority Area.
The Distribution Priority Area “is used to distribute GPs to areas where there is a shortage of GP services”.
Recommendations
Nine recommendations were made in the report:
- The Federal Government further investigates the provision and distribution of general practitioners in rural and regional Australia.
- The Government’s review of the Modified Monash Model is open to public consultation, including from communities themselves, and is progressed as a matter of priority.
- The Department of Health and the Distribution Working Group assess the outstanding exceptional circumstances review applications as a matter of priority.
- The Department of Health develops benchmarks for the optimal distribution of primary health professionals.
- The Department of Health conducts a comprehensive and holistic review of the Stronger Rural Health Strategy and that performance benchmarks be established to assess the effectiveness of the overall strategy and of its programs.
- The Federal Government investigates substantially increasing the Medicare rebates for all levels of general practice consultations, as well as other general practice funding options.
- The Department of Education, Skills and Employment, in collaboration with universities, reviews the primary care components of the medical education curriculum, with a view to ensuring that general practice is a core component of the curriculum.
- The Department of Health expands the John Flynn Prevocational Doctor Program and re-instates the John Flynn Placement Program aimed at attracting medical students to rural and regional general practice.
- The Government investigates the adequacy and suitability of the Australian General Practice Training placements allocated to the relevant general practice training colleges.
Election priorities
In the lead up to last week’s Federal budget, the AMA called for extra funding to support general practice with the following plan:
- Introduce medical homes to bolster coordinated, patient centred care
- Increase the time available to patients to spend with their GP to address complex healthcare concerns
- Encourage the provision of more GP services into after-hours
- Expand the number of nurse and allied health services available in general practices
- Bolster the GP care provided to aged care residents
- Create a wound consumables scheme, saving patients time and money
- Evolve our GP training program to make general practice more appealing to the next generation of doctors.
In the lead up to the election, Khorshid said: “The major parties need to do much better as the specialty is being left to struggle with a growing workload as the community ages and patients’ health care needs become more complex.”
Price acknowledged a lot of work is required to fulfill the inquiry recommendations.
“The RACGP will push forward and continue the fight to secure the future of general practice so that all patients, no matter their postcode, can access world-class primary care. Everyone deserves strong access to general practice care and this issue should be a priority for all parties and candidates in the lead up to the upcoming federal election,” Price said.
The full interim report can be viewed here.
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