Hello and happy Friday!
It was a busy start to the week on Monday with the launch of the federal AMA’s latest Ambulance ramping report card at Parliament House in Canberra.
Sadly, there isn’t a lot to celebrate in this latest report, which shows our public hospitals remain in logjam.
Ambulance ramping is not an occasional pressure point — it’s a daily reality and a symptom of the logjam in our public hospitals that is putting patients, paramedics, and hospital staff including doctors in harm’s way. At a press conference to launch the report, I called on governments to tackle access block head-on by expanding hospital capacity, improving patient flow, and investing in the health workforce.
The launch was followed by a roundtable run by Avant, with healthcare leaders discussing how to improve access and quality in healthcare. It was great to hear Minister Mark Butler speak about the importance of more access to care in the public system. The reduction in access to non-GP specialist care in our public hospitals is one of the issues we have been highlighting in the ongoing debate about specialist fees.
The minister also mentioned several times that the federal AMA is the group he liaises with as the voice of the profession. We will continue to make sure your voice is heard.
This week, we also attended a private briefing with the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability inquiry into the access to and affordability of medical specialists in Australia. This inquiry is an important opportunity to highlight the many barriers to patients accessing care in a timely fashion. As you know, inadequate provision of public outpatient clinics is having a huge impact on patient access and waitlists, along with workforce shortages. We will continue to advocate for workforce strategy implementation and more public clinics alongside measures to improve transparency of private healthcare funding for patients.
Last Friday I attended the final meeting of the Primary Care and Workforce Review Taskforce. The taskforce brought together a range of stakeholders to consider the findings and recommendations of four significant reviews and formulate advice to government on an integrated primary care and health workforce reform agenda.
The AMA has been advocating for reforms that strengthen patient access to GP-led care in multidisciplinary teams and address persistent workforce challenges. Our advocacy has been focused on practical, evidence-based solutions to strengthen continuity of care, ensuring patients can see their regular GP and receive coordinated, longitudinal care. This has included a strong focus on supporting GP-led, team-based models that improve patient outcomes while maintaining clear clinical leadership and accountability.
The AMA has emphasised the need for sufficient and targeted investment in any future reform, reduced administrative burden associated with changes, and funding models that reflect the complexity and patient needs in modern general practice. Our position has been consistently clear — any reforms must ensure general practice remains accessible and appropriately funded so all patients can access timely, high-quality care from their trusted GP.
Next week we will be releasing our submission to the Pharmacy Board consultation on endorsement for scheduled medicines for pharmacists. We received hundreds of responses from members to our survey on this consultation. I look forward to updating you on the release of the submission next week.
In the meantime, enjoy the weekend!
