Practice nurse policy needs constructive consultation to be fully effective - AMA survey
AMA Family Doctor Week 19-25 July 2010
An AMA survey has revealed that the Government’s extra funding to support general practices to employ practice nurses has the potential to be a huge success with family doctors but would be made far more effective through genuine consultation with the profession over the design and implementation of proposed arrangements to roll this funding out.
AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that the AMA has long been a strong advocate for more support for practice nurses working in general practices.
“Practice nurses have been a success story in improving patient access to care through general practices, with over 8500 now working with family doctors across the country,” Dr Pesce said.
“In the May Budget, the Government announced a very welcome extra $390 million in funding support for general practices to employ practice nurses, but announced changes to the way that general practices will be funded to employ the nurses in the future.
“They propose moving from a mix of fee for service MBS rebates and incentive payments to a system based entirely on block funding grants that go direct to general practices, but the new arrangements are likely to prove problematic for many practices.
“The AMA advised the Government at the time that many practices would be disadvantaged by the new funding system and we sought changes.
“We now have the results of our Family Doctor Week survey to provide evidence for the need to change the proposed new arrangements to make them work better for general practices and create employment for more practice nurses.”
During June 2010, the AMA surveyed 257 general practices from across the country to get grassroots feedback about the impact of the Government's changes.
The survey results are proof that changes are needed to the incoming system to make it more effective. The survey found that:
- 48 per cent of general practices that participated said that they were likely to be worse off as a result of the changes - with outer urban, regional and rural practices being hit the hardest by the planned changes;
- 21 per cent of practices that currently employ a practice nurse said they were likely to cut back on practice nurse employment as a result of the planned changes;
- 44 per cent of practices that do not currently employ a practice nurse said they would consider employing one or more practice nurses once the Government's Budget changes were implemented;
- 22 per cent of existing practices that currently employ practice nurses said they would consider employing more practice nurses; and
- 56 per cent of practices that currently employ practice nurses said that individual GPs would be left worse off financially as a result of the decision to abolish MBS GP practice nurse rebates in favour of block funding grants for practices.
Dr Pesce said the Government did the right thing by providing extra funding but the envisaged system for delivering the funding will disadvantage many practices and GPs and make the policy far less effective.
The survey indicates that the main problems with the proposed design of the new funding arrangements are:
- the decision to move entirely to a system of block funding grants; and
- the decision to cap the number of available grants at five per practice.
“Practice nurses are providing great support for family doctors, allowing general practices to provide more care and better care for patients,” Dr Pesce said.
“But the momentum of greater employment opportunities for practice nurses will come to a sudden halt unless the funding system is changed so that no practices are disadvantaged.
“The AMA will work constructively with the next Government to ensure that the extra funding for practice nurses is implemented effectively and patient access to care is genuinely improved.”
22 July 2010
CONTACT: John Flannery 02 6270 5477 / 0419 494 761
Geraldine Kurukchi 02 6270 5467 / 0427 209 753
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