The federal government’s draft Allied Health Workforce Stratagy still needs some work, according to the college.
The National Allied Health Workforce Strategy has drawn a mixed response from the RACGP over recommendations for the future of multidisciplinary care.
The RACGP has reiterated its belief that the strategy will be key in shaping the future of Australia’s allied health workforce, centring general practice and addressing the issues of clinical handover and care coordination that will take higher priority in a more communications-based medical system.
However, the college has also brought attention to the strategy’s lack of intention in establishing general practice as a key setting for allied health.
The RACGP’s submission to the federal government draft is primarily focused on ensuring that GPs are centred in leadership positions based on their prior training.
With general practice being the most common first point of medical contact, the workforce should run via general practice to funnel out to other disciplines, said the college.
The concerns raised align with the findings on primary care from the federal government’s Scope of Practice Review, which found that many of the innovation barriers facing GPs were due to a lack of multidisciplinary support and poor workforce structure that did not incentivise effective teamwork.
The college has recognised the increase in demand for health services due to Australia’s aging population and rise in prevalence of chronic diseases.
The National Allied Health Workforce Strategy is aimed at easing this increasing pressure via the expansion and development of multidisciplinary care.
The college has expressed support for funding reforms and greater investment into general practice to benefit the functionality of multidisciplinary care.
The college also argues there is a need for the government to promote effective communication between allied health professionals and their corresponding GPs.
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The college has three things on its wish list for the draft, with the expectation of further funding to the requests within the 2025-26 federal budget:
- Increased funding to the Workforce Incentive Program for the purpose of establishing sustainable general practice-based multidisciplinary care teams;
- additional WIP to support the pharmacists’ impact in general practice in recognition of their collaborative role in patient-oriented care;
- Establishment of a clinical governance taskforce that would oversee the development of MDCTs to ensure their potential effectivity.
The Department of Health and Aged Care has also expressed its intention to ensure MDCTs are both efficient and in alignment to the needs outlined in the Scope of Practice Review.
This would allow for the direct commission of MDCTs into small and solo general practices, which the RACGP argues that the National Allied Health Workforce Strategy would be remiss to ignore.
The RACGP has consistently said the integration of allied health professionals into general practice would provide great benefit in being able to treat specific patients quicker with more targeted expertise.
This would provide more efficient care of patients, especially for chronic disease and multimorbidity management, easing the pressure on the healthcare system.
This collaboration has been suggested to be able to occur within both physical and digital spaces, with digital spaces allowing for separate physical locations to have a more centralised communication flow.
The proposed integration also outlines and promotes the establishment of an Indigenous Allied Health workforce, to ensure culturally sensitive measures are taken in care.
This collaboration would, in argument, streamline the access to services not traditionally found in general practice such as physiotherapy, dietetics and mental health support.
This would hypothetically reduce total hospital admissions and improve the overall continuity of care.
