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The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners is professional organisation that focuses on the safety and quality of general practice.

The College’s mission is to improve health and wellbeing for all Australians by supporting general practitioners, registrars and medical students by assessing doctors skills and knowledge, supplying ongoing professional development activities, developing resources and guidelines, helping general practitioners with issues that affect their practice and development standards that general practices use as part of the accreditation processes. The College carries out these activities within a series of strategic principles which can be viewed at www.racgp.org.au/council/strategicprinciples.

The College has a proud history of achievements including, the development of standards for general practitioners and general practices and introducing continuing professional development.

Did You Know?

• The college has over 17 000 members, and over 5000 members of its National Rural Faculty. The college is the largest general practice representative body in Australia and the largest representative body for rural general practice. www.racgp.org.au/membership
• Membership of the College is voluntary, except for those doctors who are undertaking the Fellowship preparation and assessment program.. We are funded principally by annual membership subscriptions paid by our members. www.racgp.org.au/annualreport
• Each year approximately 850 doctors sit our College’s examination. This is the largest medical specialist College assessment process in Australia. Twice year, around 600 general practitioner examiners participate in the College examination. www.racgp.org.au/exam
• RACGP Fellowship or FRACGP is the title given to doctors once they have fulfilled the College’s eligibility requirements. If you see FRACGP listed after your doctor’s name, it means that s/he has successfully passed the RACGP assessment processes. FRACGP is recognised in many countries including most first world countries. www.racgp.org.au/fellowship
• The RACGP provides membership for overseas general practitioners and family physicians in Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Fiji. www.racgp.org.au/overseas/hongkong
• Over 23,000 general practitioners participate in our Quality Assurance and Continuing Professional Development program (QACPD), making it the largest medical CPD program in Australia. www.racgp.org.au/qacpd
• Gplearning, the RACGPs education and training website, has over 200 activities to chose from, covering a broad range of issues. The AFP and practice challenge is also available through gplearning. www.gplearning.com.au
• Each month, 36,000 general practitioners and physicians read Australian Family Physician, the RACGPs peer reviewed journal. www.racgp.org.au/afp
• The RACGP advocates on issues of national significance, including refugee health, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. www.racgp.org.au/refugeehealth; www.racgp.org.au/aboriginalhealthunit
• The RACGP endorses 25 guidelines each year, providing general practitioners with advice on best practice clinical care. www.racgp.org.au/guidelines; www.racgp.org.au/advocacy/positionstatements
• The RACGP provides representatives for national state and some local health care committees. These committees work in different areas of health, including the development of new health legislation, developing community based health programs and writing guidelines for general practitioners.
• Each year the RACGP Research Foundation distributes approximately $300,000 in grants to general practitioner researchers who are investigating ways of improving health care for all Australians. www.racgp.org.au/researchfoundation
• The RACGP sets the standards for general practices. For example, about the way general practice records are kept and the way medicine is stored. The majority of Australian general practices have volunteered to be assessed against those standards and meet them. www.racgp.org.au/standards
• The RACGP is celebrating 50 years of service in 2007/2008.

Publication Date: 4 December 2007
Authorised By: Quality Care and Support