Statement from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) President Dr Frank R Jones:
The policy shift by Labor lifting the Medicare freeze on general practice makes sense at so many levels: the RACGP has repeatedly underlined the risk to quality patient care, the potential worse health outcomes for individuals, the increased on costs to our extraordinary expensive hospital system, and the unintended but inevitable consequences to practice viability.
Representing eight out of 10 GPs in Australia, the RACGP puts patients front and centre, and when bad policy puts the health of individuals and our communities at risk we will always speak out. The RACGP takes seriously its mission of Healthy Profession, Healthy Australia.
There has been an extraordinary and impassioned response by the RACGP members to the College-delivered “You’ve Been Targeted” campaign. Never before have GPs been so vocal about their views.
The “You've Been Targeted” campaign informs patients of the real impact of the Medicare freeze on their access to comprehensive medical care through their general practitioner.
Response from our members has determined our resolve to reverse the freeze, so that the RACGP will now accelerate the dissemination of information regarding the consequences to patient care and the on-costs to the other parts of the health system.
We are encouraged by the news today that the Federal opposition will rescind the freeze from Jan 1 2017: yet we await the fine detail.
We urge all political parties who care about the health of Australians to commit to reflect and commit to removing the freeze on our patients health.
The RACGP will continue to advocate for an equitable, fair and improved primary health care system on behalf of our patients and communities, and will accelerate the dissemination of additional information on patient care and the on costs to the health system, via major media outlets including radio and television.
We urge the Federal Government to act now - reverse their freeze; it's bad economics and it’s bad for the health of all Australians.
Reversing the freeze and consultation with health professionals will start a sensible journey to a long term sustainable and cost efficient primary health care system.