College backs GP training changes

GP PLACEMENT will still be done at the local level when the way doctor training is delivered changes, the Tasmanian chair of Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Tim Jackson says.

“While the change will standardise training across Australia, GP placement will still be done at a local level and at a surgery level we will still need our local medical educators,” Dr Jackson said.

The proposed changes, due to come into effect from January next year, were first announced in 2017.

The body now providing doctor training in Tasmania, General Practice Training Tasmania, will no longer be funded but Dr Jackson said the local expertise inside GPTT will still be needed.

In a submission to a Senate hearing into the provision of GPs in regional and remote areas which begins in Launceston on Monday, GPTT said the decision to change the training system was “under-baked” and should be deferred.

The Tasmanian training organisation is one of nine nationally funded directly by Canberra. The federal government has announced it intends transferring the administration and delivery of the Australian General Practice Training program to the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners).

“We want the transition to be as smooth as possible but it will be a challenge to bring what nine organisations did under one umbrella. But it will bring us in line with how other specialist medical training is delivered,” Dr Jackson said.

“There will also be some savings.”

GPTT said deferring the changes would allow time to properly consult and plan, and for the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic to have passed.