We welcome the announcement made by the Hon Mark Butler, Minister for Health and Aged Care, and Susan Templeman, Federal Member for Macquarie, that the Government has updated the Distribution Priority Area classification system to recognise 700 areas with either full or partial DPA classification.

This helps support local general practices to attract, recruit and retain skilled primary healthcare professionals. We have been advocating for a review of the current DPA status in our region for some time and we are delighted the Government has taken these steps to help address GP shortages.

This change will allow practices experiencing workforce shortages to recruit overseas trained doctors to ensure that people in our region have better access to quality primary healthcare services.

I would like to acknowledge that while this is a step in the right direction in addressing this critical issue, there were other challenges for both the GP workforce and allied health workforce.

This will take some of the pressure of our GP workforce, but there is still work to be done. Our health professionals have been working at capacity for over the last two years, through several disasters and the pandemic. We’re continuing to see an increased demand for health services, particularly in mental health, and we need to ensure we have the workforce available to meet that demand.

We look forward to continuing to work with the Government to ensure our region has the help they need, when they need it.