Rural GP shortage ‘matter of urgency’ for Health Minister
07 Dec 2023
The college has once again met with the nation’s leading healthcare figures, as it cements its place in the primary care machine.
Sitting down with Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler in Canberra, the RACGP has locked down quarterly meetings with the Federal Government, as well as more when needed, as the relationship strengthens.
On Wednesday, RACGP President Dr Nicole Higgins said the meeting covered a range of topics, but that the dwindling rural GP workforce was front and centre of discussions.
It comes as doctors continue to walk away from regional areas, citing a love for the job but a lack of support, funding, and staff.
Dr Higgins told newsGP the team had a ‘detailed discussion’ about support programs for rural doctors, just days out from the long-awaited Kruk Report’s expected public release.
‘We’ve got doctors who are wanting to come and train in Australia but are now having to pay for the privilege of working in our rural areas and there is an opportunity for the Government at low cost to actually get a workforce into areas of need,’ she said.
‘We discussed with Minister Butler how the RACGP is reducing our red tape and the importance of the role of the Fellowship Support Program.
‘We need to get funding to doctors in our rural areas, particularly the [Modified Monash Model] 3–7s … it’s a matter of great urgency and this is why the department was very interested in it.’
Earlier this week, the Government announced it will spend $90 million to set up six new regional medical school programs to address this workforce maldistribution and strengthen pathways for medical students.
Additionally, the college is calling for generalism should be the basis of medical school training and general practice should be exposed at every part of undergraduate and intern years.
The meeting took place on the same day as National Cabinet, leading to a lengthy discussion about the National Health Reform Agreement (NHRA).
In Cabinet, state and territory leaders agreed to increase NHRA contributions to 45% over a maximum of a 10-year glide path from 1 July 2025.
But as GPs spend more time with their patients than ever before, the RACGP said now is the time for more targeted reform and funding to keep people out of hospitals and prevent readmission.
To do this, the meeting discussed the improved sharing of data and asynchronous communication channels between hospital specialists and GPs.
Dr Higgins said Minister Butler also asked about the Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health (BEACH) study, which gathered a dataset of 1.8 million GP–patient encounter records from 1998–2016.
‘At the moment there is a shortage of data about what’s happening in general practice and Minister Butler said “what has happened to BEACH? I was willing to fund it”,’ she said.
‘Somehow it slipped through the cracks but it’s one way of getting GPs to be involved with data but also on a bigger scale to get a practice-based research network established.
‘It’s about getting robust data to drive the evidence for funding.’
Urgent care centres were also discussed, with Dr Higgins telling Minister Butler that funding for those was ‘something we would be pushing back around’.
‘Urgent care centres are creating vacuums for workforce not just for our doctors, but for our nurses and administrative staff,’ she said.
‘This is bread and butter general practice; we need existing general practices to be better funded to be able to deliver this care.’
Dr Higgins said these regular meetings with the nation’s health leaders reflect of the college’s role in primary care and of the importance of general practice.
‘The relationship with any politician or decisionmaker serves the purpose of membership,’ she said.
‘The RACGP is apolitical, and I’ve been able to manage to establish relationships with all sides and that’s been really important.
‘The relationship is respectful, and we are now being sought out for our opinion on issues around primary care, which is important.’