September has been a month of change and progress for RACGP Rural with advocacy work being put into motion through government funding reforms and new faces being voted in on the Rural Council.
First of all, I would like to take the opportunity to welcome our newly elected Rural Council members:
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Dr Olga Ward – Western Australian Representative
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Dr Skye Curlis – South Australian Representative (co-opted)
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Dr Donna O’Kane – Northern Territory Representative (co-opted)
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Dr Ginita Oberoi – Tasmanian Representative
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Dr Vicki Mattiazzo – Deputy Chair of the Rural Council
I invite you to come along to the annual Rural Member Forum and meet your Rural Council on Wednesday 4 October at 7.30pm AEST.
This event combines the annual member meeting, updates from the Rural Faculty, a message from Hon Emma McBride, Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health and a keynote presentation by Churchill Fellow Dr Lara Wieland, who has recently returned from volunteering with NGOs in Ukraine.
We are pleased that the government has released its new details of the Workforce Incentive Program (WIP) Rural Advanced Skills Guidelines on the Department of Health’s website this month.
The Rural Advanced Skills payments are scaled to encourage service delivery in more regional/remote areas. It is a positive step in securing health equity for rural patients while also recognising the work of general practice. Payments are due to commence from 1 January 2024 and will recognise services delivered during 2023, 2024 and 2025. Notably, the payment supports GPs, even without the RG ticket, who work in rural and remote Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations.
This has been a key advocacy point for the College and the Rural Faculty, so it is fantastic to see the policy outcomes of our advocacy work. I would also like to remind everyone that we do have a process that will allow GPs who are already doing ED and hospital work to seek RPLE to attain the Rural Generalist Fellowship. If you would like to know more, I encourage you to visit the RACGP website or email rg@racgp.org.au.
In other advocacy news, RACGP has secured a significant win regarding payroll tax with the Queensland Government announcing that the Revenue Office ruling to be issued will make clear that under normal business arrangements, patient fees including Medicare benefits and any out-of-pocket fees, when they are paid directly by a patient to a GP for that GPs services, will not be subject to payroll tax.
The RACGP continues to advocate for other states to follow suit in ensuring GPs are not subject to extra payroll tax. For the full statement, please click here. We are also pleased to see the beginning of 60-day dispensing after a robust advocacy campaign. 60-day dispensing was fully implemented on 1 September 2023 and is a great outcome for rural communities.
RACGP Rural continues to advocate for equitable access to health care for rural communities. We attended the National Rural Maternity Forum on the 29 of August in Canberra, hosted by the National Rural Health Commissioner. During the forum, we had the opportunity to engage with other key healthcare stakeholders, hear innovative models of care, and contribute to ongoing discussions advocating for better maternal health outcomes for our rural patients.
WONCA2023 is also drawing close and RACGP Rural is hosting the following sessions:
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Roundtable Reconnection: The quest to revive and restore the female rural medical workforce
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No coughing allowed: Why the continued fight against TB is important for us all
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Forum Revival: If our rural health systems are in crisis then General Practitioners and Family Doctors are the solution
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The rural workforce pipeline is not a pipeline – it’s a complex river system, subject to risk of drought
I encourage all our members to attend as many sessions as possible and support your colleagues. There has been a tremendous amount of effort put into creating these sessions and they are fantastic opportunities to engage in conversations with each other, discuss broader issues, and learn from your peers. These conversations and ideas that come from these sessions form the important foundation for larger advocacy opportunities, policy change, and the evolution of rural general practice.
We look forward to catching up with everyone at WONCA and having meaningful conversations about rural general practice to orientate our advocacy activities in the future.
A/Prof Michael Clements
Chair, RACGP Rural
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