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Unnecessary red tape affects time with patients
19 Jun 2008
AMA Victoria today said that young doctors were turned off from general practice because of all the paperwork!
AMA Victoria Vice President, Dr Harry Hemley, said that unnecessary paperwork was severely affecting the amount of time GPs were able to spend with patients.
“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,” he said.
As part of General Practice Week, AMA Victoria 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.
The AMA is calling for paperwork requirements to be drastically cut in a number of government programs such as Practice Incentive Programs, service incentives, chronic disease items, and authority prescriptions.
“Successive governments have ignored repeated recommendations to cut red tape in general practice.
“In 2002, the Productivity Commission’s findings were shrugged off and more recently, the Regulation Review Taskforce’s recommendations have been largely pushed aside.”
Dr Hemley said that millions of dollars were being spent on attracting overseas-trained doctors when we could be looking at simple solutions to better retain and attract more locally-trained GPs.
“The Government should ease some of the pressures on our GPs – by cutting red tape and using this precious resource more wisely,” he 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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