LNP ahead on health – time for Labor to match

The LNP’s health policy announced today is a positive step forward. It mirrors many of the commitments already made by the Labor government, with some ambitious promises.

“AMA Queensland will issue a score card on all parties’ health policies ahead of the 26 October election,” President Dr Nick Yim said.

“We are certainly very encouraged to see such a big commitment of extra funding to our health system, but the devil is in the detail.

“It’s good to see a figure for the number of new doctors, nurses and allied healthcare practitioners we need but we haven’t seen much detail around how we will recruit them.

“We need more medical students and more training places for junior doctors.

“We have called for clinicians to be more involved in decision-making. Putting frontline staff on HHS boards is a good start, but those staff must come from across all disciplines.

“There’s not a lot here for primary care, which is the most cost-effective form of healthcare.

“We are in a cost-of-living crisis and now is not the time to be taxing people’s healthcare.

“We are pleased that Labor has committed to extending the $40,000 grants for junior doctors to train as GPs until 2030. AMA Queensland called for this program and it is working to attract more doctors to general practice as their specialty.

“We want the LNP to match this commitment.

“We want Labor to match the LNP’s commitment to exempt GPs from payroll tax, and we want all parties to commit to extending the exemption to all private specialists.

“The LNP’s commitment to reduce ambulance ramping to below 30 per cent and stabilise wait lists within the next four years is ambitious. This will require a commitment to implementing the recommendations of our Surgical Wait List Roundtable and our Ramping Roundtable.

“These are blueprints for all parties on how to cut waiting lists and reduce bed block.

“Diagnosing, treating and curing are the core functions of our health system but we also need to stop people from becoming sick in the first place. We need increased commitment to preventive health to help people stay health and well.

“All increased investment is welcome, particularly for our workforce. We would like to see more detail about how the LNP intends to attract and train these additional workers, particularly in our regional and rural areas, and incentives to retain the invaluable clinicians we already have.

“Putting our frontline health care workers back in charge is vital so any new systems and models of care we implement our hospitals will actually work.”

In addition to the major strategies identified, AMA Queensland is calling on all parties to commit to the following low-cost game-changing strategies:

• funding our PhD research project to analyse medical practitioners’ scope of practice to develop new models of care that are safe and improve patient flow;
• our call for a 0.5 FTE GP liaison role within Queensland Health’s senior executive to embed and represent general practice at senior levels and provide advice on fundamental issues relevant to primary care;
• genuine and proven collaborative, holistic, team-based and safe models of care that prevent clinicians working in isolation and improve health outcomes by having the right practitioner performing the right task at the right time in a supported and collegiate system, and
• incentives to retain the invaluable clinicians we already have.

Read more at AMA Queensland’ Election Priorities and Surgical Wait List Roundtable Action Plan.