GPs Workload Increasingly Busy

Source: Australian Journal of Pharmacy, January 2010

Pharmacists could share the increasingly complex clinical workload of general practitioners (GPs), as it was confirmed that GPs are more involved in the long-term care of more patients with complex multiple medical problems, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) reports, General practice activity in Australian 2008-09 and 10-year data tables, released last month.

'The majority of Australians' health services are provided by GPs so the information revealed in these reports point towards long-term trends in healthcare for all Australians,' said Dr Chris Mitchell, president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

Using the results of more than one million encounters between doctors and their patients, the data, collected annually for the BEACH research program, identifies 10 years of changes in general practitioners, their practices and their patients. 'The report estimates that GPs managed around 25 million more problems in Australia in 2008-09 than in 1990 to 2000.

Evidence of an ageing population and an increase in the number of patients requiring care for long-term (chronic) disease means that a GP's workload is only going to increase over time,' said Dr Mitchell. 'in addition, the number of hours available for people to see their GPs is potentially shrinking as our GP workforce ages; the average age of GPs is now older than 50 years.

This must be addressed through better recognition of the work of GPs. We urgently need to increase the number of doctors working in general practice and before they retire we need to harness their skills to train the next generation.

Since 2000, GP supply has fallen by 2%. 'The number of general practice training places must increase by a minimum of 100 every year in order to reach the year 2015 target of 1,500 places. 'While the continued development of multidisciplinary care teams is also essential in the management of this increasing clinical workload, GPs must remain as the front-line of primary healthcare offering whole person, comprehensive and coordinated care to the community,' Dr Mitchell said

View the full report at www.aihw.gov.au/publicalionsAndex.chm tige/11 g13

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