Radio interview with Minister Butler and Loretta Ryan, ABC Brisbane – 1 August 2024

LORETTA RYAN: Think about this, you've woken up feeling a bit under the weather and you're trying to get an appointment with your GP, but you couldn't get in.
 
CRAIG ZONCA: Ah well, it happens.
 
RYAN: It does, so what do you do? Well, the Federal Government has been rolling out Urgent Care Clinics across the country to help ease pressure on GPs.
 
ZONCA: Today, announcing a new one. Mark Butler is the federal Health Minister. Minister, good morning to you.
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Good morning to both of you.
 
ZONCA: Where will this new one be?
 
BUTLER: It's going to be in Morayfield, which is a big health hub up in the northern part of your city, your great city. It's been operating for a while, but we're really excited about bringing it into the Medicare Urgent Care Clinic network. This is now a network that has more than 58 Urgent Care Clinics operating across the country, 11 here in Queensland. And I've already announced a second one down in Gold Coast to take some of the pressure off the Gold Coast hospital down there, which is the busiest emergency department in Australia. Today we're announcing the Morayfield Health Hub will become an Urgent Care Clinic as well. Already we've seen more than 600,000 Australians through these clinics for urgent care, so not life-threatening care, which you should go to a hospital to, but care that simply can't wait for many days that so often people have to wait to get in to see their GP nowadays.

ZONCA: So, when you say it's been running for a while but now we'll be under this urgent care clinic banner, what changes at this particular practice?
 
BUTLER: They'll have access to urgent care clinic funding from the Commonwealth. I know the operators up there. I've visited this clinic a number of times over the years. They've been trying to make this model work for a long time. They're pretty innovative up there, but they just haven't been able to get access to the sort of funding from governments that effectively makes it viable. The thing about these urgent care clinics is they've got to operate seven days a week. About a third of their business happens on the weekend. They're very busy on the weekend with under 15-year-olds because a weekend sport. So your kid gets a fracture injury or some other injury at weekend sport, at the moment, the only option for mums and dads really has been to take them to the emergency department of the local hospital and sometimes wait six, eight, ten or even more hours to get them seen. About 1 in 3 patients going through these urgent care clinics are under the age of 15, which has been a bit of a surprise to me, but parents are telling me this is such a good option. They can get in there on a walk-in basis. They don't have to make an appointment. They're open extended hours into the evening and importantly, as I say, on Saturday and Sunday, where they're very, very busy attending to fractures if your kid falls off the skateboard or their bike or gets injured at weekend sport and importantly, they are fully bulk billed so they're completely free of charge.
 
RYAN: The state government minister has also established satellite hospitals to help ease the burden on GPs, 100,000 people have accessed those clinics so far. Last week we heard from Queensland Health Minister Shannon Fentiman:
 
QUEENSLAND HEALTH MINISTER, SHANNON FENTIMAN: It is really hard to get in to see a GP or find one that bulk bills or find an appointment on the same day. That's why the state is doing the heavy lifting. You know, general practice is the responsibility of the federal government but we're doing the heavy lifting by opening these satellite clinics because there is such a need. We have people turning up to our EDs with ingrown toenails, with UTIs, you know, with people needing stitches. These are things that should be treated in the community. I make no apologies for the huge investment we're making so Queenslanders and families can get free healthcare close to home.
 
RYAN: Minister Mark Butler why has this heavy lifting been left to the states?
 
BUTLER: Well, really, because nothing was being done before we came to Government. I promised at the last election that we'd start to put in place these sorts of arrangements, the urgent care clinics. They weren't supported by the now opposition, the Liberal National Party. They didn't have anything like this when they were in Government. So, the health minister in Queensland is right to say that state governments too often were left to do the heavy lifting. A years long freeze in the Medicare rebate really did put a lot of pressure on bulk billing for GPs, which is why again, we tripled the bulk billing incentive that has seen bulk billing rates start to climb again for the first time in a long period. We are dealing with really ten years of cuts and neglect, particularly to general practice and the health ministers and doctors will tell you if general practice is under pressure most of those pressures end up reverberating into your local emergency department. I think we're working really closely together, not just here in Queensland, but with states and territories around the country, to assume the responsibilities that Shannon Fentiman rightly says are the Commonwealth, to build clinics like this, to take pressure off local hospital emergency departments.
 
ZONCA: Now on that, it is all about getting more access to GPs. You said you've incentivised that bulk billing payment, but GPs say they still want more. And not just to stay in practice because a number of GPS are at that level of age where they are looking at retirement, but to attract and keep them in that profession for longer?
 
BUTLER: That's right. I mean, it's not too long ago, maybe a few decades ago, that one out of every two medical graduates would choose general practice as their career. That rate has plummeted to about 1 in 7. That's a pretty terrifying figure if you cast forward 5 or 10 years, given how absolutely critical general practice is to the operation of a good healthcare system. So that's why our focus, our number one focus in health has been on rebuilding general practice. That bulk billing incentive has meant that bulk billing is turning around.
 
ZONCA: Yeah, but GPs say they still want more Minister?
 
BUTLER: Of course. The two biggest increases to the Medicare rebate in the past 30 years have been this year and last year. In two years, we've increased the rebate by more than the last government did over nine long years. We're not going to change this overnight, but we are starting to see the green shoots of recovery for example, the number of junior doctors who have just graduated who are choosing general practice as their preferred career, is up 20 per cent this year compared to last year. We are starting to see those green shoots of recovery, but I don't pretend it's going to change that we'll see overnight. We're seeing more bulk billing. We're seeing a lot more additional free visits to the doctor, 900,000 additional bulk billed or free visits to the doctor just last month because of our changes. These Urgent Care Clinics are not only providing a great opportunity for people to access free care in their community, but we also know they are taking pressure off Queensland hospitals and hospitals across the country.
 
ZONCA: I appreciate your time this morning, Minister. Thanks so much.