CHRIS KANE General Manager Strategy and Engagement, Western Australian Primary Health Alliance
GP Urgent Care Network Pilot Using existing capacity and capability in General Practice.
WA’s Labor Government has prioritised urgent care
discussion table, as well as the Australian Medical
in its Putting patients first health platform. Early
Association (WA) and the Royal Australian College
in the Government’s first term, Health Minister
of General Practitioners WA Faculty, to develop
Roger Cook promised to set up a network of urgent
a model of urgent care that recognised the
care clinics to ‘take the pressure off emergency
capacity and capability that already exists within
departments’ by seeing some of those low acuity
general practice.
patients who could be well managed elsewhere. The State’s Sustainable Health Review identified
In the spirit of co-design and collaboration, the State Government convened a series of meetings
about 190,000 patients a year presenting to
involving all stakeholders and canvassing a range
emergency departments who could have been
of options. WA Primary Health Alliance presented
treated in a primary care environment.
evidence to show that over 4,000 appointments
Getting to grips with the issues The initial plan was for government-subsidised standalone clinics, which would have effectively competed with existing general practices whilst imposing a significant cost burden on WA taxpayers. WA Primary Health Alliance brought GPs from independent and corporate practices to the 18
The Health Advocate • OCTOBER 2019
go unfilled every day in general practices around the Perth metropolitan area. General practice has capacity to treat patients who need to be seen urgently but are not emergencies. All agreed that solutions to reducing emergency department demand for lower acuity care focus on developing models of care that match demand and capacity.
