GENERAL PRACTITIONER

All information in this publication refers to persons aged 45 years and over who had at least one general practitioner (GP) visit in the 12 months between November 2014 and November 2015.

General practitioners (GPs) are widely used in Australia and are many Australians’ first point of contact for health issues. People access GPs for a variet of reasons including short-term illnesses, preventive health practices and management of long term health conditions. It is therefore important that people are able to access a GP in a timely manner and receive care that meets their needs, both in terms of ease of access and the quality of care provided. This chapter presents data on people who saw a GP, or needed to see a GP but did not, for their own health in the last 12 months. Respondents were asked about the frequency of their visits, the services they had used, waiting times, barriers to accessing care as well as their experience with their GP.

Frequency of use varied considerably with:

• 15% seeing a GP 12 or more times
• 26% seeing a GP 6 to 11 times
• 46% seeing a GP 2 to 5 times
• 7% seeing a GP once only and
• 3% who did not see a GP (these people saw a GP in the 12 months prior to selection (November 2014 to November 2015) but did not see a GP in the 12 months prior to responding to the survey). See the Explanatory Notes for more information.
  

People aged 65 years and over were almost twice as likely to have seen a GP 12 or more times compared with those aged 45 to 64 years (21% compared with 11%).

WAITING TIMES

Around one in six people (17%) reported waiting longer than they felt acceptable to get their most recent GP appointment. Those aged 45 to 64 years were more likely to have reported waiting longer than they felt acceptable than those aged 65 years and over (20% compared with 12%).

AFTER HOURS GP CARE

After hours GPs provide care outside normal GP opening hours. For this study, after hours includes some or all weekdays after 6pm, Saturdays after 12pm, Sundays and public holidays. This availability may alleviate pressure on the wider health system, as people with non-life threatening illnesses or injuries are able to see an after hours GP instead of going to an emergency department.

Around one in eight (12%) people saw a GP after hours. People aged 45 to 64 years were more likely to see a GP after hours than those aged 65 years and over (14% compared with 8%).

EMOTIONAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH

Around one in five people (22%) spoke to their GP about their emotional or psychological health. Women were more likely than men to have spoken to their GP about their emotional and psychological health (26% compared with 18%). Those aged 45 to 64 years were more likely to have spoken to their GP about their emotional or psychological health than those aged 65 years and over (26% compared with 17%).

Respondents were asked about a range of activities their GP may have undertaken for their emotional or psychological health. Of those who spoke to a GP for their emotional or psychological health, almost half (48%) reported being prescribed medications, two in five (39%) reported being provided with counselling and just over one quarter (29%) reported being referred to a psychologist, psychiatrist or counsellor.

People aged 65 years and over were more likely to have indicated they were prescribed medications for their emotional or psychological health compared with people aged 45 to 64 years (52% compared with 45%). In contrast, people aged 65 years and over were less likely to indicate they were referred to a psychologist, psychiatrist or counsellor compared with people aged 45 to 64 years (21% compared with 33%).

BARRIERS

Access to services is an important contributor to good health. Timely access to GPs can decrease burden on other parts of the health system and potentially prevent hospitalisations¹. Almost one quarter of people (23%) indicated that there was a time they felt they needed to see a GP but did not go. People aged 45 to 64 years were more than twice as likely not to see a GP when they felt they needed to, compared with people aged 65 years and over (30% compared with 14%).

The most common reason people indicated for not seeing a GP when they felt they needed to was because they could not get an appointment (49%). This was more common for those aged 45 to 64 years than those aged 65 years and over (50% compared with 43%). Women were more likely to indicate they could not get an appointment with a GP when they felt they needed to than men (52% compared with 44%).

The cost of an appointment was another reason people indicated as to why they did not see a GP when they felt they needed to. Those aged 45 to 64 years were more than twice as likely to indicate the cost of an appointment as a reason for not seeing a GP when they felt they needed to than those aged 65 years and over (20% compared with 8%).



1 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, ‘Admitted patient care 2015–16: Australian hospital statistics’ http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=60129559537; last accessed 15/09/2017.