High calibre line-up for new workforce committee

A newly formed RACGP committee focused on Australia’s GP workforce expects to hit the ground running, bringing a ‘high calibre of intelligence and insight’ to discussions and advice.
 
The RACGP Expert Committee – GP Workforce (REC–GPW) will provide a dedicated national forum to advise on the strategic, policy and system settings needed to grow, support and sustain the GP workforce.
 
Newly appointed Chair, Associate Professor Michael Clements, will work alongside RACGP member appointments, including Dr Beth Allin and Dr John Inderhaug (both international medical graduates) and Associate Professor Jill Benson.
 
External co-opted members bring significant national expertise and include Professor Jenny May, National Rural Health Commissioner; Professor Tony Scott, Director of the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University; and Ms Jayde Fuller, Director Indigenous Regulatory Practice.
 
Associate Professor Clements told newsGP he is pleased to be taking up the new role, noting the strong expertise on the committee as well as its staff.
 
‘I’m so thrilled to be with this very expert team of people who will be focused on continuing to deliver doctors to where they need to be and provide them with support. I’ve had my first meeting with the team, and I’m just so impressed,’ he said.
 
‘We’ve got PhDs and health economists working as staff in this committee, not just the committee members, so we have really high calibre of intelligence and insight.
 
‘We’re going to find our feet, and the members should expect to see a lot from us in terms of evidence informed advocacy and data, and a highly informed board making effective decisions because the committee has been supported by the board, but also structured and attended by a great group of people.’
 
Associate Professor Clements will be stepping down from his current position as RACGP Rural Chair later this year after reaching a maximum tenure of six years in the job.
 
‘I’m also personally thrilled to be stepping into this new role because this is how I can continue to contribute to the communities that I’ve been very happily representing and advocating for in my last six years,’ he said.
 
This new workforce committee will have a key role to play in informing the RACGP Board, Associate Professor Clements said.
 
‘Ever since the college took responsibility for training, rather than just education standards, we’ve taken on the responsibility for workforce outcomes,’ he said.
 
‘We have a direct responsibility to the Government through AGPT to be delivering doctors to the rural areas as part of that contract.
 
‘We’ve got the ethical and moral responsibility, too, to make sure that the GPs that we train and the GPs that we support are also supporting the communities that need them, and that’s built into our constitution.
 
‘Creating the expert committee on workforce actually demonstrates RACGP’s commitment to using our resources and our expertise in mixing training, education, and support for members with delivering workforce that’s appropriately trained and supported to work in the areas that our Australian community need them to go.’
 
But it isn’t just about rural and remote areas, adds Associate Professor Clements.
 
‘This is actually about delivering workforce to the communities that are missing out, and so this includes urban communities from culturally linguistically diverse backgrounds, the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander communities that may feel that they’ve got poorer access to GPs in cities,’ he said.
 
‘We know that there’s been quite a significant expansion in population in outer metro areas, and that has not been matched by an appropriate increase in GP workforce at the same time and yet, a lot of the government levers have been disadvantaging the urban areas.
 
‘This workforce committee is tasked with understanding the environment that we are working in, collecting data on the workforce as it is now and where it needs to be, working with key stakeholders, which does include the Department of Health, Canberra and politicians.
 
‘We will be working with our own internal units to make sure that any policy decision, any funding change, any system changes that we make to training selection and allocations are appropriately targeting the making sure that the output, which is where the doctors are going to, are appropriately served.’
 
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