As Northern Tasmanians struggle to book appointments with their GPs the details of how a $2 million pot of government funding will be used to help improve the doctor shortage are not yet known.
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The federal government's General Practice Incentive Fund Tasmania (GPIFT), announced in December 2020, is aimed at improving incentives for doctors to relocate to regional areas for practice.
Primary Health Tasmania chief executive Phil Edmondson said it expects to soon receive a contract from the Australian Department of Health detailing the guidelines and funding for this program.
He said initial discussions with general practice workforce agencies had revealed the GP access challenges, but also the opportunities, in Tasmania.
"When this contract is in place we will be able to undertake broader stakeholder engagement and determine what will have the best chance of success in this state," Mr Edmondson said.
"Addressing the health workforce challenges is complex and requires a mix of solutions, many of them long term. Any new activities must complement rather than duplicate existing initiatives aimed at addressing these issues," he said.
"We need to explore the reasons behind doctors not wanting to come and stay ... we need to look at more innovative ways to partner with programs that already exist, to make the regions more attractive to GPs."
Rural Doctors Association of Tasmania secretary Ben Dodds said the organisation had not yet been invited for consult on the GPIFT.
"As an organisation and as a stakeholder of rural health in Tasmania we haven't been invited for consult on it yet," he said.
"We are in the dark about what the future might hold for that fund, what its goals are, what its terms of reference are and how it will result in access to improved primary care."
Dr Dodds, who works as a rural generalist trainee at Scottsdale, said making general practice more attractive when compared to hospital practice was key, and a way to achieve this is to provide improved training opportunities to GPS that would increase and retain the GP workforce in Tasmania.
"The rural generalist pathway is a training pathway that provides or trains GPs as specialists with emergency department skills, and also provides them with an advanced area of skill in something else, such as mental health, palliative care or anaesthetics," he said.
Dr Dodds said the organisation hoped to meet with state government to get funding to implement such training positions within the Tasmanian hospital system.
"We want government to set aside some dedicated training positions so these doctors can get the anaesthetics or obstretic or emergency department skills that they need to complete this pathway.
"That is going to be the best way to attract people to Tasmania."
