| 107 Primary care sector ‘completely overrun’ Cambridge Family Health owner Dr Prabani Wood says funding structures for primary health care services are flawed. Kelly Deeks Good quality primary care is one of the best and most cost-effective ways of keeping individuals, their families, and their communities healthy. “One of the most important factors in providing good primary care is being able to access your GP easily, and for your GP to be able to follow you up so that health conditions are diagnosed and treated early,” says Cambridge Family Health owner Dr Prabani Wood. However, the flawed funding structure for primary health care services, which uses a capitation model, does not value continuity of care. Prabani set up Cambridge Family Health in 2015, when there was a real need in the area for female GPs. The practice has grown to the equivalent of five full-time GPs and nearly 8000 patients, She says as hospital systems break down, more and more patient care is being outsourced to primary care, and the sector is completely overrun. “With the lack of appropriate funding and increased workload demands, general practice is increasingly viewed as an undesirable place to work with fewer and fewer doctors and nurses putting themselves forward to work in the sector.” Budget 2022 provided $100 million for mental health services. General practices, which handle the most mental health cases of all health services, do not seem to have benefited from this increased funding. General practices were approached by the Government during the major health reforms that came into effect on July 1, 2022, and invited to express their interest in bringing a primary care perspective to the health care reforms. These positions were full and parttime unpaid roles. “How are you supposed to fit that in when you are working as a GP?” Prabani says. “I’d have to pay my own wage as well as the wage of someone else to cover me. It merely serves to allow policy makers to say ‘we tried to engage with primary care and no-one was interested’.” Cambridge Family Health is fighting through the challenges to provide continuity of care that is as easy to access as possible for its patients. The practice has initiated a number of specialist services including skin screening, minor surgery, and contraception clinics, and moved into a new purpose-built facility in between Covid lockdowns in 2021, which includes radiology, physiotherapy, and a pharmacy on site, and GPs are available for non-urgent appointments within two days of booking. COMMUNITY Cambridge Family Health: GenPro “Family health is the bit I love the most,” Prabani says. “In the past eight years, I’ve worked with patients when they were trying to get pregnant, and now they have kids at school. I’ve seen children growing up and going through university, and now they have their first jobs. Sometimes I’ll look after three generations of the same family. That’s the kind of thing that’s not valued by the system or by the funding model.” “With the lack of appropriate funding and increased workload demands, general practice is increasingly viewed as an undesirable place to work ...” Proud to provide clarity and confidence to Cambridge Family Health to make decisions that count. BUSINESS ADVISORS - WWW.CHUNGCA.CO.NZ Contact us: 07 838 2593 | info@chungca.co.nz 67 Seddon Road PO Box 9202, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand 0800 832 477 info@gds.net.nz www.gds.net.nz Your digital transformation partners. An innovative group of IT practitioners, GDS cuts through the barriers of old tech so many people are stuck behind and injects fresh solutions and approaches for our clients large and small.
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