Page 1317 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
GPs from our community health centres back in 1995. This happened under a Liberal government. That certainly changed the landscape. However, that did not quite make it into their short list.
The current shortages in GPs and how to arrest them, and reverse them if we can, are something that we have been working on with the Division of General Practice in the AMA, the GP advisers and the GP liaison unit for some time. I think it is relevant that we put all that work together. I am pleased that it appears the standing committee will do an inquiry into this. They did inquire into the Wanniassa closure at the end of the last Assembly and came up with a few recommendations, none of which go to the areas that it is sought to be inquired into.
Certainly from ACT Health’s point of view, we will appoint the executive director of policy and our GP adviser to head up the work. We have a number of areas that we are working on across ACT Health. We will pull that work together and we will provide that work to the Assembly in September. I think that this will cross over with an inquiry by the standing committee, but I think that that is not a problem. The government will provide a submission if that is the will of the Assembly.
But on top of that we will run a concurrent process that will pull in all the stakeholders from across the community, including individual general practice. We will look at all the legislation and see what can be done in terms of any amendments to protect patients. We will talk to individual general practice about what their future plans are. We will seek to involve corporate providers—I have to say that the corporate providers at that level are cooperating very well with ACT Health—and we will continue to lobby the commonwealth.
I have to say also that the commonwealth have been reluctant to treat the ACT as a special isolated case, which is something that I have been arguing for for some time. I was unsuccessful in those arguments with Minister Abbott, who refused to even listen to them. I am making slow but steady progress with Minister Roxon, including a meeting tomorrow that I am having with her office about how the closure of Kippax family practice occurred; the impact that that has had on our community; whether that is something that is on their radar; whether it is something that they have been witnessing across the country; whether they have any concerns about it; and whether they have any intention to address some of the concerns that have been raised here by the community.
There is a lot going on, but I think we have to be realistic. While this is a politically difficult argument to run, we have to be realistic about the ACT government’s ability to pull the levers in relation to regulation of general practice. We do not provide the provider numbers; we do not run Medicare. They are the two significant levers that influence general practice and decisions that general practice makes, including the cost of being a general practitioner.
There will be many arguments from general practice that the costs of being a general practitioner in a stand-alone business are too much based on the workload that they are experiencing. I think that is part of the challenges that we are witnessing here in the ACT as suburban general practice moves into larger corporate models.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .