Page 1551 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 31 March 2009
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for many people, including many elderly or chronically ill people, these centres are neither suitable nor desirable. The ACT government supports a variety of health services that offer consumers a choice.
The ACT government agrees to five of the standing committee’s six recommendations, and one recommendation is noted. The ACT primary health care strategy 2006-09 provides the strategic direction for the delivery of primary care services in the ACT. The strategy recognises that access to health care should be equitable and that all people in the ACT should have access to a range of health services and providers regardless of where they live.
The ACT government is currently implementing a number of initiatives in order to improve the availability of general practice services in the ACT. In 2008, for example, the ACT government, in partnership with the Division of General Practice, employed a general practice marketing and support officer. This is a four-year initiative to help local general practices attract and recruit GPs to the ACT. In particular, this role is helping general practice navigate the multiple and complex processes required for recruitment of overseas trained doctors.
ACT Health and the ACT Division of General Practice held a joint forum in 2008 focusing on barriers to recruiting overseas GPs to the ACT. An outcome of this forum was a commitment from stakeholders to support the removal of unnecessary barriers to the recruitment of overseas doctors through the ACT area-of-need process until the ACT reaches the national average of GPs per head of population.
Other outcomes of the forum have been that the ACT government has been running a series of advertisements promoting the ACT as a great place for GPs to work, while the ACT Division of General Practice has been promoting its website as a central resource for local practices to individually advertise their general practice vacancies. These activities, in conjunction with the close working relationship with the ACT Australian Medical Association, have reduced the area-of-need application process from around four weeks to less than a week.
Another significant ACT Health initiative has been the reconvening of the ACT GP workforce working group. In 2007 ACT Health, in partnership with the ACT AMA, agreed that there needed to be a peak body to inform discussion, help set direction and consider general practice workforce strategies across the ACT. The workforce working group includes representatives from the ACT Division of General Practice, ANU Medical School, the ACT Medical Board, the Australian government Department of Health and Ageing and other major stakeholders.
I am informed that, to date, two projects have arisen as a consequence of this group’s deliberation—that is, a study of sessional or part-time GPs which aims to examine why some GPs do not practise full time and how they could be better supported to work more sessions. The Australian government, in partnership with ACT Health, the Division of General Practice and the ANU Medical School, is funding the sessional GP study.
A pilot project partnership between ACT Health, the local GP training authority and several volunteer general practices involves the rotation of a sample group of junior
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