USUAL GP AND USUAL PLACE OF CARE

Ongoing relationships between patients and their health care providers allow GPs to get to know their patients over time, facilitating patient-focussed care. Ongoing relationships can also encourage patient trust in professional judgements and advice, thereby improving the uptake of preventive care, enhanced adherence to treatment and increased satisfaction with care¹.

Participants in the Study were asked, in addition to questions about their general use of GP services, about their experiences with:

• their usual GP; that is, the GP they go to for most of their health care
• their usual place of care; that is, the place they usually go to if they are sick or need advice about their health—for example, a clinic with GPs only, a clinic with GPs and other health professionals, a community health centre, or an Aboriginal medical service.

This chapter presents data on persons aged 45 years and over who had at least one GP visit between November 2014 to November 2015 (the Study cohort) and who saw a GP in 2015-16, in relation to their experiences with their usual GP and usual place of care.

People who had more GP visits in 2015-16 were more likely to report having a usual GP than people with fewer visits (with 95% of people who had 20 or more GP visits having a usual GP, compared with 77% of people who had one GP visit). However, the proportion of people who reported having a usual place of care was relatively consistent irrespective of how many GP visits they had (at 90%-92%).

Length of time as patient of usual GP

People who had more GP visits were less likely to have been going to their usual GP for five years or more than those who had fewer visits. More than half (57%) of people who had 20 or more GP visits had been going to their usual GP for five years or more compared with around two thirds (69%) of people who had one GP visit.



Type of usual place of care

A usual place of care is the place that a person typically goes to if they are sick or need advice about their health. Examples include clinics with GPs only, clinics with GPs and other health professionals, community health centres or Aboriginal medical services. Most people in the Study cohort had a usual place of care.

People who had more GP visits were more likely to have a clinic with GPs and other health professionals as their usual place of care (49% of people who had 12-19 or 20 or more GP visits), while people with fewer visits were more likely to have a clinic with GPs only as their usual place of care (59% and 58% for people with 1 or 2-5 GP visits respectively).



Availability of after hours care at place of usual care

After hours care refers to a person's place of usual care having a GP available to visit or talk with on some or all weekdays after 6pm, Saturdays after 12pm, Sundays or public holidays.

People who had more GP visits were in general more likely to report having a usual place of care that provides after hours care. For example, after hours care was available on Sundays for around one quarter (24%) of people who had 20 or more GP visits, compared with 11% for people who had one GP visit. Concurrently, the proportion of people who did not know whether after care was available decreased with increasing numbers of GP visits.



EXPERIENCES WITH USUAL GP OR OTHERS IN USUAL PLACE OF CARE

Study participants who had a usual GP and/or usual place of care were asked about their perceptions of a range of aspects associated with their health care, such as whether their usual GP or others in their usual place of care seemed aware of their health care history.

In general, having a greater number of GP visits was associated with a higher proportion of people reporting that their usual GP or others in their usual place of care always engaged in these aspects of health care. Seven in ten people (70%) who had 20 or more GP visits reported that their usual GP or others in their usual place of care always seemed aware of their health care history, compared with around six in ten people (59%) who had one GP visit. Similarly, 61% of people with 20 or more GP visits reported that they felt completely comfortable talking with their usual GP or others in their usual place of care about personal problems related to their health, compared with 47% of people who had one GP visit.



Self-assessed quality of health care

Study participants were asked to assess the quality of health care received from their usual GP or usual place of care in the last 12 months. People who had more GP visits were more likely to report that the quality was excellent than people with fewer GP visits (55% for people who had 20 or more GP visits compared with 45% for people who had one GP visit).

REFERENCES

1. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018. Healthy Communities: coordination of health care – experiences with GP care among patients aged 45 and over, 2016. Cat. no. CHC 2. Canberra: AIHW.