Keeping trained procedural GPs in rural areas
The Commonwealth Government will expand the formal training program for country procedural GPs to include emergency medicine – a field critical for procedural GPs practising in the bush.
View by date:
Previous MinistersPDF version of Keeping trained procedural GPs in rural areas (PDF 23 KB)
22 December 2005
ABB176/05
The Commonwealth Government will expand the formal training program for country procedural GPs to include emergency medicine – a field critical for procedural GPs practising in the bush.
Country communities rely on experienced general practitioners providing surgical, anaesthetic and obstetric services.
This addition will become part of the Training for Rural and Remote Procedural GPs Program, which supports rural and remote GPs undertaking procedural work that in urban areas is the responsibility of specialists.
The $75 million program, announced as part of the Strengthening Medicare package, provides funding to rural and remote procedural GPs for training and upskilling in fields such as surgery, obstetrics and anaesthetics.
This expansion will provide rural procedural GPs with grants of up $1,500 a day for two days a year to undertake training in emergency medicine. The expansion of the program to emergency medicine will be done within the current program budget.
Supporting rural GPs to continue to provide procedural and emergency medicine services will help rural families to have access to health services in their own communities.
The emergency medicine stream will be introduced by February 1 next year and is expected to cost $10 million to 2006-07.
The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners will assess GP and training activity eligibility for the program.
For more information call Mr Abbott's office on ph 02 6277 7220.
Help with accessing large documents
When accessing large documents (over 500 KB in size), it is recommended that the following procedure be used:
- Click the link with the RIGHT mouse button
- Choose "Save Target As.../Save Link As..." depending on your browser
- Select an appropriate folder on a local drive to place the downloaded file
Attempting to open large documents within the browser window (by left-clicking)
may inhibit your ability to continue browsing while the document is
opening and/or lead to system problems.
Help with accessing PDF documents
To view PDF (Portable Document Format) documents, you will need to have a PDF reader installed on your computer. A number of PDF readers are available through the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) Web Guide website.