22 April 2016


RACGP Corporate Governance Review outcomes

The RACGP has grown rapidly and now has more than 32,000 members. This growth, coupled with unprecedented community awareness of the vital role GPs play, makes it a critical time to ensure the organisation is structured effectively for the future.

A three-tiered governance model has been proposed by RACGP Council, taking into consideration member feedback as well as benchmarking against modern best practice, other medical colleges and related organisations during its development. The model will be voted on at the 2016 annual general meeting at GP16 in Perth.

To better meet the needs of the membership, this new model divides the functions currently performed by Council into three dedicated bodies:

RACGP Council

RACGP Council would be responsible for all clinical and professional decisions and duties.

Council would meet quarterly to make professional or clinical decisions including outcomes of RACGP Expert Committees and other committees.

The Council would be comprised of Faculty Board Chairs, the Censor in Chief and two GPs in training.

RACGP Board

The RACGP’s fiduciary and strategic business-related decisions and duties would be managed by a Board. The Board would determine high-level legal, financial, compliance and regulatory issues.
The Board would meet quarterly, plus two additional meetings: one for strategic planning and one for Annual General Meeting matters.

The Board would consist of seven members: the President, the Chair of Council and Vice President (both elected from within Council), the Finance, Audit and Risk Management (FARM) Chair and up to three skills-based appointments (some of whom may be GPs).

All Board directors would be appointed for two-year terms, renewable up to six years as is the current standard.

RACGP Senate

The RACGP’s member engagement and general consultation functions would be managed by a new, dedicated body.

The Senate would meet twice a year (once at a rural location), plus an additional meeting at the RACGP annual conference.

Senate meetings would take the form of a Q&A / Insights-style panel session, with invited panellists and RACGP members forming the audience. The meetings will be interactive, with the audience asking questions about ‘hot topics’ in general practice and primary healthcare.

A demonstration of the Senate will be held in June 2016 and presented to members.

Council has proposed the establishment of a Nominations Committee to provide recommendations for items such as Board skills, experience and competencies, Board composition and succession planning. Council also proposes simplifying and rationalising RACGP membership classes with only Fellows eligible to elect the President. Registrar Associates will benefit from twice the representation on Council (for all clinical and professional decision making).

The RACGP considers this governance structure will strengthen the input, engagement and involvement of committees and members. Members are encouraged to view the model, provide comment and raise questions through the RACGP Governance Portal (for member access only).

For further information visit RACGP website

Dr Frank R Jones
RACGP President


Update on the development of the draft 5th edition RACGP Standards for general practices

The RACGP is currently developing the next edition of the RACGP Standards for general practices (the Standards) which will be launched in October 2017. The first draft of the 5th edition Standards was based on stakeholder feedback, a review of available evidence, comparable national and international primary care standards, and recommendations from the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua), the body that accredits the Standards.

The first draft of the Standards was launched for consultation from 15 February 2016 – 1 April 2016. The RACGP Expert Committee – Standards for general practices (REC–Standards) is now reviewing all the feedback received during this consultation phase to develop the second draft of the Standards.

In June 2016 the second draft of the Standards will be piloted across practices in Australia. In addition, the RACGP will be seeking stakeholder feedback. A summary of the feedback received from stakeholders and the changes that have been made to the Standards will be made available on the website in June 2016. For more information, please visit the RACGP website.


Health& portal launch

The RACGP is pleased to introduce Health& this week.

Health& is an innovative portal to enable and empower our patients in their understanding of health issues, reinforcing the key messages given to them by their GP.

Health& also provides a secure place for patients to capture and manage health information. The website contains written, animated and illustrated resources designed to improve health literacy. Patients can access health surveys, set up personalised reminders to keep up-to-date with vaccinations, mammograms and other medical appointments, securely store their own health records, ask common health questions and search for medically-accurate and engaging health information. 

Your patients can sign up to Health& via the dedicated landing page for patients of RACGP members.


Control, protect and secure your RACGP account

From 1 August 2016 you will be required to have a strong password for access to your RACGP account. 

Keeping your data secure is important to the RACGP. Secure computer and information management systems are essential to keep sensitive information private and protect you against identity and data theft. With advancing technology, it is important the RACGP improves its systems and services to support you.

Please log in to the RACGP website and scroll to the ‘account details’ section to update your password today.

To learn what makes a strong password or for more information on why the RACGP is making these changes visit Security.


RACGP Clinical Pearl

Choosing Wisely Pearl 3

The RACGP is proud to be a partner of Choosing Wisely Australia. Over the next few weeks, In Practice will highlight recommendations of tests, treatments and procedures that should be questioned by GPs and their patients.

CLINICAL PEARL 3: Don’t routinely do a pelvic examination with a Pap smear

A bi-manual pelvic examination performed as part of a routine Pap smear in an asymptomatic patient has no proven benefit and has not been shown to improve the detection of ovarian cancer.

The procedure can cause pain, fear, anxiety and/or embarrassment and can lead to unnecessary, invasive and potentially harmful diagnostic procedures. It requires additional clinician time and, for consultations not otherwise requiring intimate examination, the consideration of a chaperone. Therefore, unnecessary examinations lead to resource and opportunity costs.

Visit the Choosing Wisely Australia website for more information, including exceptions and supporting evidence.


In Practice poll

Practice Incentive Payment: diabetes incentive

The Practice Incentive Payment (PIP) - Diabetes Incentive aims to encourage GPs to provide earlier diagnosis and effective management of people with established diabetes mellitus.

To receive the Diabetes PIP outcome payment (one component of the PIP –Diabetes Incentive), at least 2% of practice patients must be diagnosed with diabetes mellitus and a diabetes cycle of care must be completed for at least 50% of these patients.

The number of patients in a practice with a diabetes mellitus diagnosis is based on the number of patients who have had an HbA1c test for the management of diabetes in the previous two years.

To correctly bill HbA1c tests for the purposes of the Diabetes PIP, pathology providers are supposed to use the MBS item 66841 for the diagnosis of diabetes, while the MBS item numbers 66551 or 66554 (if the patient is pregnant) should be used for diabetes management. The referring GP should indicate on the pathology request form whether the HbA1c test is for diabetes diagnosis or management.

RACGP members have raised concern that some pathology providers are not using the correct item numbers when billing HbA1c tests. For example, a pathology provider might use one MBS item number for all HbA1c tests while another provider might use various item numbers seemingly without regard to the intention of the test.

We invite you to participate in the current poll to help the RACGP better understand the extent to which our members are being affected by inconsistent pathology billing for diabetes HbA1c tests.


Media enquiries

Journalists and media outlets seeking comment and information from the RACGP should contact:

John Ronan

Senior Media Advisor