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Submissions

Submission to Senate Inquiry on Factors Affecting the Supply of Health Services and Medical Professionals in Rural Areas

10 January 2012

The AMA has made an extensive submission to the Senate Community Affairs Reference Committee Inquiry into the Factors Affecting the Supply of Health Services and Medical Professionals in Rural Areas, setting out viable strategies to improve access to health care for people living in rural and remote Australia. Click here for the full media release or view the submission here.

Submission: Draft RACGP Vocational Training Standards

17 November 2011

Vocational training standards for general practice are changing

The AMA has given its in principle support to proposed changes to the RACGP vocational training standards in a submission lodged earlier this week. The new draft standards involve significant change and a move to an outcomes based approach. Given the significant changes, the AMA emphasised the need for the RACGP to:

  • ensure the changes don’t lead to additional costs and/or dilute the training experience for trainees;
  • ensure the standards are underpinned by relevant criteria and recognise the need for a continued time based minimum for training;
  • recognise and address the limitations of competency based training to preserve the quality of training;
  • provide appropriate information and support to supervisors and trainees about the changes; and
  • involve a GP registrar in the development of the standards.

Read our submission here.

Learn more about the RACGP draft vocational training standards here.

Find out about our position on Competency based training in medical education here.

Commonwealth Funding and Administration of Mental Health Services

The AMA has made a submission to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee Inquiry into funding and administration of mental health services.

The submission asks the Inquiry to recognise the importance of significant further investment in mental health services and to recommend that the Government reverse its 2011/12 Federal Budget decision to cut Medicare funding for mental health services delivered by GPs and psychologists under the Better Access Program.

The submission also highlights the lack of consultation undertaken by the Government before it took this Budget decision and how it is symptomatic of a more general problem in the approach of the Government to changes to the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and the funding arrangements for general practice.

National Performance and Accountability Framework

The AMA submission to the Department of Health and Ageing on the draft Performance and Accountability Framework which will be used by the National Health Performance Authority urges the Government to undertake a proper consultation process on the performance indicators proposed in the Framework beyond the State and Territory governments.

The implementation of the Framework must recognise that hospitals and health care organisations which have difficulty meeting access targets are most likely to be those that are under resourced and need more financial support. No hospital can meet performance targets if it is not sufficiently resourced, and therefore has the capacity to meet patient demand.

The AMA does not support a structure that will direct patients and funding away from general practices. Nor does the AMA support a structure that disenfranchises general practitioners from directly managing the care and treatment of their patients.

Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record System: Legislation Issues Paper

24 August 2011

The AMA submission to the Department of Health and Ageing on the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record System: Legislation Issues Paper should be read in conjunction with the concerns expressed in our submission on the PCEHR Draft Concept of Operations.

Fundamentally, the purpose of the legislation for the PCEHR should be to ensure that only people who have a genuine need and are authorised to do so are entitled to access a person’s PCEHR. The legislation should also set out the framework under which the PCEHR system operator will function and the requirements on the repository operators.

The AMA's response to the Legislation Issues Paper stresses that the regulatory burden of the PCEHR on medical practitioners should be kept to an absolute minimum. Where medical records are covered by existing legislation, there should not be any need for additional legislation to deal with the PCEHR.

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