New Survey Aims to Find Out How Much Time Hunter Residents Spend in GP Waiting Rooms

BY ISABEL EVERETT 

Hunter residents are being urged to fill out a survey released today, the next time they find themselves in a GP waiting room, to find out where the longest wait times are being experienced. 

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia has launched the National Waiting Time Survey, which will ask patients how long it took them to get an appointment, how long they sat in the waiting room, which suburb their appointment was in and the healthcare provider.  

“We know Australian families find it hard to get in to see their GP, and when they finally get an appointment, they almost always get stuck in the waiting room,” said the National President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, George Tambassis.

"We know our health system is already under pressure and isn’t adapting to our aging and growing population," he said. 

The National Waiting Time Survey will quantify where patients are spending the longest time sitting in a waiting room, and where patients have the shortest wait to see a doctor.

"We want to understand the full extent of, and geography of the bottlenecks so we can address them at the source,” Mr Tambassias said.

According to the ABS, almost 1 in 5 people in Emergency Departments could have been treated by a GP.

Figures also show 20 percent, or 33.3 million of Australia’s 158.3 million GP visits could be diverted to a pharmacy for treatment instead.

“We already know Australians are waiting too long to be seen by a GP. When patients can’t get an appointment, they are left with the choice to either go without an appointment and ignore their ailment, diagnose themselves on the internet or present to an ED," Mr Tambassis said. 

"These are all bad outcomes for patients and our health system."

“Next time patients are sitting in a GP’s waiting room they need to fill out the survey to help us understand where the bottlenecks are so we can fix the system,” said Mr Tambassis.

The National Waiting Time Survey can be found at the fixthesystem.com.au/survey website. 

Aged care crisis leaving Novocastrians in the lurch

BY LAUREN FREEMANTLE

Federal Member for Newcastle, Sharon Claydon has addressed parliament about a looming crisis in the aged care industry which will affect Hunter residents.

100,000 older Australians are waiting to access home care packages they've already been approved for, including 80,000 with high care needs or dementia.

NSW has the longest waiting list in the country, which is only set to get worse in the future.

Sharon Claydon said it's despicable one Novocastrian man was forced to call her office to discuss the issue after receiving no response from the government.

"My office is getting harrowing calls about the implications of these waiting lists," she said, "I've had one gentleman contact me who was just at his wit's end. 

"He'd done everything he could," Ms Claydon continued, "after waiting a year for a high-level care package to become available for his 90-year-old mother - he had nowhere else to turn to." 

The MP said the Novocastrian man's story was just one of many families struggling to look after their elderly members. 

"The government needs to understand the very real human consequences of their inaction...they've been marked down as a 'fail, fail, fail' in my view," she said.

Ms Claydon spoke on the issue in parliament yesterday, and was surprised to see no government ministers listed to address the matter during proceedings. 

However, the Minister for Aged Care, Ken Wyatt, happened to be in chambers at the time and responded to Ms Claydon's address. 

"Regretfully, the Minister's response was that it's a complex issue," the MP explained, "...well that is your job. That's your portfolio...you've sat on the news of waiting list times for aged-care in-home packages for 12 months.

"Only now have you bothered to share that news with the public." 

Sharon Claydon said the government's response to the 100,000 people waiting was to release 6000 additional places. 

"That's not even a drop in the ocean," Ms Claydon affirmed.

The Member for Newcastle in her address to parliament yesterday.