Proposed health plan renews focus on physicians and GPs
Monday September 7, 2009
The Federal Government has released the draft of its primary health plan which has shown the Government's renewed focus on local healthcare such as general physicians, GPs and similar health care professionals including psychologists and midwives.
The draft of Australia's National Primary Health Care Strategy was released by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and will complete the previous work of the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission.
The draft proposal details plans for patients with chronic illnesses to become more on the forefront for local physicians and doctors. Incentives will soon be available for physicians who get chronically ill patients access to the best treatments, in order to keep them out of hospital beds and reduce the current pressure felt on the hospital system.
Under the new proposal, when GPs and local physicians were treating patients with chronic and long term illnesses they would be able to receive additional resources and time needed to treat, meaning that it would be the type of patients they treat, not just how many.
The Federal Government and an external reference group developed the draft primary health plan strategy with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd saying that the input of the external input of health care bodies provided "the next level of detail that sits below the commission's broad priorities".
"The government is determined to get health reform right,"
"It provides us with a draft roadmap to guide future policy and practice in primary care in Australia, ensuring we are building a system the cares for the most vulnerable in our community and a system that is connected with the patient at the centre," Mr Rudd said.
