What is the impact elsewhere in the health sector of this “un-Budgeted” spending. Adding in increases around Very Low Cost Access, Community Services Cards and other general practice funding, the total funding increase proposed – by the Government side of the PHO Services Agreement Amendment Protocol equation – to support sustainability in general practice is $81.9 million. It’s a different league from the costs faced by cancer patients to self-fund lifesaving medicines, but add increased copayments to the return of the $5 prescription charge and this cost-shifting by the Government is going to hurt patients and general practice. Nothing quite says cosy reliability more than the rows of pylons that march up and down the country delivering power. Yet again the budgetary eye stays firmly unfocused on general practice, where the key purpose is keeping people healthy and out of costly secondary care.

Source: Stuff July 03, 2024 07:39 UTC