ARA president Dr Sam Whittle was part of a major AMA-led summit held in Canberra to address Australia’s strained healthcare system.
More than 30 leading medical colleges, associations and societies gathered in Canberra this week for a pivotal national meeting hosted by the Australian Medical Association.
Among them was Australian Rheumatology Association president Dr Sam Whittle.
“Their aim was to try to get an entire healthcare industry-wide round table, to try and do a bit of high-level thinking about the state of the healthcare system and where improvements could be made,” he told Rheumatology Republic after the meeting.
“I certainly applaud the endeavour. Like a lot of these things, it’s hard to know what impact it actually has, but it is useful for everyone to be in the same room in a way that we don’t really do otherwise, certainly across specialties.
“To be in the room with the neurosurgeons and the GPs and the psychiatrists and everyone else I think, is useful. And the fact that the health minister came and made an address was valuable.”
Dr Whittle said Mr Butler dedicated much of his address to changes to bulk billing incentives, and talking about the scope of his new portfolio, which now includes disability.
“There was some discussion around scope of practice, and that’s an important discussion,” he said.
“While it’s generally directed towards primary care, many of the potential problems are relevant to us in rheumatology as well, because we’ve been pushing in our workforce crisis, for more nurses and getting everyone to work to their top of their scope of practice.
“That’s something that we support in rheumatology, because we think that we’ve got a model for it that works, and we can see that there are differences between what we do and what happens in certain primary care settings, where the lines have been blurred a little bit between different types of practitioners in order to increase people’s access to primary care, but without necessarily making it clear what type of care people are getting.
“That was an interesting discussion, but I think our experience of it is better than the than the GPs in particular.”
Dr Whittle said a session about the reforms being made to the Medical Board of Australia and Ahpra was also a highlight.
The chair of the Medical Board, Professor Susan O’Dwyer, and Justin Untersteiner, the new CEO of Ahpra, both spoke, as well as Sue Dawson, who has led the Independent review of complexity in the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme.
“That was broadly interesting because it’s relevant to all of us,” said Dr Whittle.
“There were some interesting statistics – for example 83% of Australian doctors will have a regulatory notification over the course of their career – so they’re trying to improve processes to make the impact of that on the person who’s notified, because something like nine out of 10 of them resulting no action at all.
“It looks like the review is going to make some important recommendations that will improve that. And Ahpra’s new CEO, Justin Untersteiner, he’s very keen to implement those changes as soon as possible. So that looks promising.”
Related
Dr Whittle said while the focus of the meeting was on primary care and hospital and emergency care, it was a positive step to see specialists included in the roundtable.
“We have to be there at the table,” he said.
“It’s gratifying that we get invited and that we were there and that we can participate. But it’s a massively complex system and making change in a complex system where everything’s interrelated is so challenging.”
He said it was good to see the level of representation from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, which he said was becoming a stronger voice for physicians.
“They are working really hard,” he said.
“And it’s absolutely their job for them to be our voice in Canberra. We all need to be there in our own right as well, but we can’t do it without the without the heft of the college as well.
“So we need to be all working together. And you know, to be fair, I think we are working together well at the moment.”
Colleges, associations and societies represented at the meeting included:
- Australasian Association of Nuclear Medicine Specialists
- Australasian College for Emergency Medicine
- Australasian College of Dermatologists
- Australian & New Zealand Intensive Care Society
- Australian and New Zealand Society of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeons
- Australian & New Zealand Society for Vascular Surgery
- Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine
- Australian Orthopaedic Association
- Australian Rheumatology Association
- Australian Society of Anaesthetists
- Australian Society of Ophthalmologists
- Australian Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons
- Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons
- Australian and New Zealand Society of Nuclear Medicine
- Cardiac Society of Australia & New Zealand
- Colorectal Surgical Society of Australia & New Zealand
- College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia & New Zealand
- General Surgeons Australia
- Internal Medicine Society of Australia and New Zealand
- National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
- Neurosurgical Society of Australasia
- Rehabilitation Medicine Society of Australia & New Zealand
- Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators
- Royal Australasian College of Physicians
- Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
- Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists
- Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
- Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists
- Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
- Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia
- Rural Doctors Association of Australia
- Urological Society of Australia & New Zealand
AMA president Dr Danielle McMullen addressed media before the meeting got underway on Monday.
“We’re gathered here today with 100 of Australia’s leading doctors and health policy experts to talk about the prickliest issues affecting our healthcare system,” she said.
“We all know our healthcare system is under strain: whether it’s the logjam in our public hospitals, the workforce shortages right across the country, but particularly in rural and remote Australia, and the closures that we’re seeing even in private hospital services, we all need to come together and urgently address these issues.
“These are affecting Australians every day, and therefore they’re affecting doctors. We’re a profession trained to care, and the issues that hurt our patients hurt us too. So today, we’ll talk about solutions, everything from workforce supports through to having the right regulatory settings, how we support our public and private sector to deliver that care that Australians so urgently need.”
