The huge recruitment drive will have to avoid cannibalising from regional general practice.
The AMA’s NSW branch has cautiously welcomed a $4.5 billion healthcare funding package announced ahead of the NSW budget, but says any benefits for GPs will be indirect and that workers must not be recruited from places that need them.
Mr Perrottet said 10,148 full-time-equivalent staff would be recruited to hospitals and health services across NSW over four years. These additional staff would include nurses and midwives, doctors, paramedics, pathologists and scientific staff, pharmacists and allied health professionals, as well as support and ancillary staff.
“We have set a goal in the first 12 months to fill over 700 positions as either full-time paramedics or support staff,” he said. “Now, the advice I’ve received back is that they believe there is capacity within the NSW labour market to fulfil those positions. I would expect that many people will be attracted to these roles that we provided today.”
The AMA’s NSW president, Dr Michael Bonning, said the announcement was encouraging, but warned against cannibalising staff currently working in regional practice.
“We need to be careful that we aren’t taking workforce that is already delivering incredible public service through general practice, especially in regional and rural NSW,” Dr Bonning said. “We want to avoid doctors who might be engaged in MBS fee-for-service general practice then being recruited to be part of the hospital system.”
The type of staff and way they were recruited would be crucial, he said.
“I care about access to public outpatient clinics – ensuring there is hospital-supported care for those patients who are sick and complex, but who shouldn’t be in-patients and who shouldn’t be landing on the doorstep of the emergency department,” he said.
“But oftentimes, they need the input of multidisciplinary teams, which are best suited to public hospital outpatient departments, so the recruitment of doctors, of nurses, of allied health specialists or allied health clinicians to public hospitals should also help.
“We would hope to improve the opportunities for consultation between the GP, who knows the patient well, and the specialist in the public hospital outpatient clinic, with opportunities for regular specialist input, non-GP specialist input, into care.”
He said the recruitment drive could boost community care services and thereby support general practice.
“However, this money is not directed towards general practice. So, unless money is going into state clinics that engage GPs or going into the recruitment of GP VMO workforce, or GP staff specialist workforce in hospitals then it’s unlikely to directly benefit our members – and GPs everywhere – it’s more likely to indirectly benefit GPs by the better care that we can provide for our patients.”
Mr Perrottet also announced a new public sector wages policy earlier today to provide increased pay for public sector employees, including nurses and paramedics. Employees would be offered a 3% remuneration increase per annum in 2022-23 and 2023-24 – lifting the current wage cap from 2.5% – with a possible further 0.5 per cent in 2023-24 for employees “that make a substantial contribution to productivity enhancing reforms”.
The figure is significantly lower than annual CPI inflation, which increased to 5.1 per cent in the March quarter.
In addition, a one-off payment of $3000 will be provided to employees in the NSW Health Service in recognition of their work on the frontline of the pandemic. The payment covers paramedics, midwives, cleaners and all other permanent staff employed by the NSW Health Service.
Today’s announcement follows a similar funding announcement yesterday, flagging funding for nearly 2000 extra paramedics and support staff.
