General practice leaders are meeting in Canberra tomorrow for an emergency summit organised by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) after a new report revealed general practice in Australia is at breaking point.
The General Practice Crisis Summit brings together leaders from the general practice sector, consumer groups, government, and academia to develop solutions to secure the future of general practice care in Australia and improve patient health outcomes.
It comes after the report, an annual health check-up on general practice in Australia, highlighted the scale of the crisis – with almost half of all GPs surveyed saying it is financially unsustainable for them to continue working as a GP. Just 3% of the over 3,200 GPs surveyed said current Medicare rebates are sufficient to cover the cost of providing high-quality care, and almost three in four reported feelings of burnout over the past year.
RACGP President Adj. Professor Karen Price said the time for lip service was over.
“The latest Health of the Nation report paints a very grim picture of the future of general practice care, and the future health of the Australian people, if our country’s leaders don’t take action,” she said.
“This is why the RACGP has organised this Crisis Summit, bringing together leaders from general practice, nurse groups, local health and workforce agencies, patient groups, universities and government to collaborate and put forward meaningful solutions to the problems in front of us. We are united in our concern for the future of primary care and are coming together to collectively call for immediate action and investment in patient services, along with the reforms needed to ensure people across Australia can access the care they need.
“Without decisive action, we will see more practices close their doors across Australia, more people struggle to access a GP, and bulk billing will continue to collapse – which will result in more patients delaying care and health conditions deteriorating.
“We are in this crisis because Australia’s general practice system has been stripped of funding and support for decades.
“The Medicare freeze had a devastating effect on healthcare in Australia. Today’s Medicare patient rebates don’t come near to reflecting the cost of delivering high-quality care in communities across, which is why we are seeing the decline in bulk billing.
“The lost decades of underfunding have also led to the GP workforce shortage, which is particularly severe in our rural and remote communities, where health outcomes are much poorer and life expectancy is shorter.
“Just 13.8% of future doctors are putting general practice as their first preference career, and recruiting and retaining GPs has become the biggest challenge reported by practice owners in our 2022 Health of the Nation report.
“We need to address the root of this crisis to ensure the future of general practice and ongoing access to high-quality care for everyone across the country.
“The problem is healthcare funding in Australia is skewed to focus on treating illness, rather than preventing it. This is despite all the evidence showing investment in primary care saves lives, improves health outcomes, and is much more cost effective. We also have a funding divide in our country, with the federal Government responsible for general practice and the states and territories responsible for hospitals and tertiary care. This results in cost shifting, care shifting, fragmentation and waste, and it urgently needs an overhaul.
“Tomorrow’s Summit will examine the key issues that need to be addressed to tackle this crisis. This includes exploring the different funding models required to best ensure equitable access to care in Australia, and how we can reverse the erosion of the GP workforce, making general practice an attractive career choice with long term sustainability.
“These are complex problems, and there is no quick fix. We must act urgently and save general practice because without it, the entire health system will fail. There is no alternative workforce.
“We will release the solutions from the Summit in a White Paper in coming weeks, and I look forward to having a frank discussion with our government about the way forward to improve patient outcomes and ensure the future of general practice.
Australia’s healthcare system is internationally recognised as world class, this needs to be protected, so patients can access quality healthcare when they need to, no matter their postcode or income.”
The RACGP’s outlines the urgent need to restructure the healthcare system into one that provides the right care for patients at the right time and in the right place, and that is sustainably funded into the future.
~
