Tamworth doctor Ian Kamerman picked to take part in Canberra 'crisis talks' on future of general practice

Called just last week, the powerful Royal Australian College of General Practice (RACGP) summit will aim to produce a white paper to resolve a number of problems in the sector.

Northwest Health principal Ian Kamerman was personally approached to attend the invite-only forum.

Dr Kamerman said just 13.8 per cent of new doctors were becoming GPs, driving a shortfall in primary care with potentially devastating consequences.

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"The thing is we know that the quality of health systems overall is intimately linked with the quality of general practice - quality and access to general practice," he said.

"As the numbers diminish, general practice becomes less viable. It becomes very much a vicious circle. Our health system is going to be worse off because people will be essentially using acute services, the hospital system, emergency departments, needlessly."

RACGP President Adjunct Professor Karen Price, who called the crisis meeting, released a new report on the state of Australia's general practice last week.

The survey of 3219 participating GPs revealed that nearly half of GPs believe it is financially unsustainable for them to continue working.

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"The disrespect and disinvestment in general practice has had predictable and shameful effects," she said.

"Unless things change, more and more practices will face the impossible decision of hiking fees for patients or closing up shop."

Dr Kamerman said there were a few clear priorities for the new Commonwealth health minister Mark Butler.

"The first thing is that we need to make it simpler for overseas-trained doctors to work in Australia," he said.

"We've got a lot of overseas-trained doctors working in Tamworth. And the process from them expressing an interest and actually starting work is roughly a year. And that is just far too long. A lot of that is just the bureaucracy. That can be speeded up without any reduction in quality."

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Dr Kamerman said the medical immigration process crossed government departments, with no body clearly responsible for regulating it - and was painfully slow as a result.

He said there were also problems keeping Australian doctors from picking the specialty.

"The financial rewards of being a GP are certainly not as good as that of being a non-GP specialist," he said.

The summit will take place at Old Parliament House on October 5 and last a full day.

The Royal Australian College of General Practice regulates the country's GPs, administrating the exams that are the final hurdle before medical registrars can practice medicine without supervision.

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It represents more 40,000 member doctors across the country and also has an advocacy role for primary health care.

Dr Kamerman is the chair of the Australian Medical Association's federal council of rural doctors, but was picked for attendance as a private individual.

He said the problem in the medical specialty has been brewing for years, but reform proved impossible for the last few years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Often things need to get really bad before they get better," he said.

"Most people now would be finding that it's increasingly hard to access your a GP. The waiting time to see a GP is in the weeks if not months."

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