General practice - workforce gaps now and in 2020 (original) (raw)
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The evolution of the general practice workforce in Australia, 1991-2003
The Medical journal of Australia, 2004
To examine changes between 1991 and 2003 in the characteristics of active recognised general practitioners in Australia. We compared self-reported GP characteristics from the 1990-91 Australian Morbidity and Treatment Survey (AMTS) with those from the 1999 and 2003 Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health (BEACH) surveys, after standardisation for age and sex to the respective sample frames. AMTS and BEACH are cross-sectional, paper-based, national surveys. Three random samples of 473 (1990-91), 980 (1998-99) and 1008 (2002-03) GPs who had claimed at least 1500 A1 (ie, general practice) Medicare items in the preceding year (in the AMTS) or 375 general practice Medicare items in the preceding 3 months (in the BEACH surveys). Changes in distribution of GP sex, GP age, number of sessions per week, practice size and location, country of graduation, and postgraduate training. Between 1991 and 2003, the proportion of female GPs rose from 19.3% to 35.2%; GPs aged < 35 years dropped f...
BMC Health Services Research, 2013
Background: Good quality spatial data on Family Physicians or General Practitioners (GPs) are key to accurately measuring geographic access to primary health care. The validity of computed associations between health outcomes and measures of GP access such as GP density is contingent on geographical data quality. This is especially true in rural and remote areas, where GPs are often small in number and geographically dispersed. However, there has been limited effort in assessing the quality of nationally comprehensive, geographically explicit, GP datasets in Australia or elsewhere. Our objective is to assess the extent of association or agreement between different spatially explicit nationwide GP workforce datasets in Australia. This is important since disagreement would imply differential relationships with primary healthcare relevant outcomes with different datasets. We also seek to enumerate these associations across categories of rurality or remoteness.
Addressing general practice workforce shortages: policy options
The Medical journal of Australia, 2008
There is an ongoing shortage of general practitioners in Australia, accompanied by a decline in the popularity of general practice as a career choice. Many factors influence the career choice of junior doctors and medical students, including role models, the quality of clinical attachments during training, remuneration, and flexibility of training and working hours. Evidence-based strategies that could increase the number of doctors choosing general practice as a career include longer and higher-quality general practice attachments during medical school and the early postgraduate years, and emphasising the positive aspects of general practice, such as flexibility. General practice would become a more attractive choice if remuneration was in line with hospital specialties.
Small-area estimates of general practice workforce shortage in rural and remote Western Australia
Australian Journal of Rural Health, 2006
Objective: To trial a measure of rural and remote GP access for small areas.Design: A cross-sectional study using geographical information systems software to calculate GP to population rates with a floating catchment of 100 km radius around census collection districts (CCDs).Setting: Non-metropolitan Western Australia.Participants: The locations and full-time equivalents of GPs and other primary-care doctors were identified through a GP workforce survey.Main outcome measures: GP to population ratios for each CCD were classified as being above or below a benchmark of adequate GP access. CCDs with no GP sessions reported within 100 km were identified separately. These categories were investigated by divisions of general practice and by indigenous status, age and employment characteristics of the population.Results: Small-area estimates detected greater variation in access than depicted by conventional methods. Sixty-four per cent of the non-metropolitan population live in CCDs with adequate GP access. Forty-five per cent of indigenous people and 52% of people working in rural industries live in CCDs with access below the benchmark.Conclusions: The floating catchment method is a powerful tool to identify small areas of inadequate service. It can be applied to measure access to other professionals, medical equipment or facilities.
Actual availability of appointments at general practices in regional New South Wales, Australia
Australian family physician, 2017
There is limited data to inform policy about the availability and costs of primary healthcare at the local level. The objective of this article was to determine the appointment availability and out-of-pocket costs for patients presenting with non urgent conditions to general practices in a regional setting. A cross-sectional, census study included all 184 general practices across 12 local government areas in northern New South Wales. Practices were telephoned in a randomised sequence on weekday mornings by a researcher. Twenty-two practices were excluded from the study as these were specialised only services; therefore, the sample size was n = 162. The rate of same-day appointment availability was 47.5% (n = 77/162; range: 11-63%), and bulk-billing availability was 21% (range: 0-50%). The mean out-of-pocket cost was 29.98(range:29.98 (range: 29.98(range:12.95-60.30). Availability of primary healthcare and bulk billing across northern New South Wales is highly variable. Areas with low service availability...