The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has made its submission to the Primary Health Care Advisory Group, detailing its position on a number of key issues facing the Australian healthcare system.
The submission is strongly aligned with the RACGP’s vision for the future of healthcare in Australia, highlighting key areas where general practice can play a leading role in improving the health of the nation.
Greater focus on the treatment of chronic conditions, voluntary patient enrolment and equitable access to affordable primary healthcare feature prominently in the submission, available on the RACGP website (PDF Download).
RACGP President Dr Frank R Jones highlighted the rise in patients with multiple chronic conditions as one of the most serious challenges facing the current health care system, where the current provision of care is primarily for single diseases.
“Australians are living longer and we know the prevalence of multiple chronic diseases increases with age, therefore as our population ages, the proportion with multimorbidity will also increase,” Dr Jones said.
“As generalists, GPs are best suited to tackle the rising disease burden, particularly among disadvantaged populations and rural and remote communities.”
He said the RACGP supported the establishment of voluntary patient enrolment (VPE) for all patients, not only those with chronic and complex health issues.
“International research confirms that continuity of care with a regular GP and practice improves overall health outcomes and is cost efficient,” Dr Jones said.
“Healthy patients can benefit greatly from preventative health advice and activities, which are best coordinated through a single GP practice where the practitioner has a thorough understanding of that patient’s needs.”
Dr Jones said GPs often acted as a ‘filterer’ of care to other primary and secondary health services – ensuring services are delivered to efficiently to patients most in need.
However, the RACGP is firmly against the present models of pay for performance.
“Making healthcare providers accountable for their patients’ health outcomes is problematic at best. Health providers cannot be held accountable for a number of factors out of their control, which affect and influence patients’ health outcomes”
“Penalising healthcare providers for poor health outcomes related to issues that are entirely out of their control will dissuade healthcare providers from practising in rural and lower socio-economic areas”
“Accountability for patients’ health outcomes is more logically the domain of the governments.”