Cutting Red Tape So GPs Can Spend More Time With Patients
The Australian Medical Association today said that unnecessary paperwork was severely affecting the amount of time GPs are able to spend with their patients.
As part of General Practice Week, the peak medical body is highlighting the importance of general practice in our health care system and the restrictions GPs face in trying to deliver high-quality patient care.
AMA President, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, said that young doctors were turned off general practice because of all the paperwork!
"Red tape is a burden on the good work of GPs," she said.
"Up to a quarter of a GP's time is spent on paperwork. Doctors rank administrative problems in their top five difficulties in running a GP practice.
The AMA is calling for paperwork requirements in a raft of government programs to be drastically cut - such as Practice Incentive Programs, service incentives, chronic disease items, and authority prescriptions.
Dr Capolingua said that successive governments had ignored repeated recommendations to cut red tape in general practice.
"Government turned a blind eye to the Productivity Commission's findings in 2002 and more recently, largely disregarded recommendations put forward by the Regulation Review Taskforce.
"The Government is investing millions of dollars to recruit doctors from overseas. Clearly, if we could ease some of the pressures on our GPs - by cutting red tape and using this precious resource more wisely - we could better retain and attract more locally-trained GPs" she said.
General Practice Week runs from 15-21 June. The week highlights the fact that GPs are leading the way to better health.
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