Integrating General Practice into the Australian COVID-19 response: A description of the GP Respiratory Clinic program in Australia

Abstract

Integrating primary care within the health response is key to managing pandemics and other health emergencies. In recognition of this role the Australian Government established a network of General Practitioner (GP) led respiratory clinics (GPRCs) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of a suite of broader measures aimed at sustaining community access to primary care. GPRCs provide holistic face to face assessment and treatment to those with respiratory symptoms in an environment with strict protocols for infection prevention and control; ensuring that this patient cohort is able to access high quality primary care whilst protecting the General Practice workforce and other patients. The GPRC model was rapidly developed and operationalised with the first 2 GPRCs opening on March 21, 10 days after the policy was announced. Subsequently a total of 150 GPRCs have opened with broad geographic coverage that have serviced over 800,000 individuals living in more than 99% of Australia's postcodes. Through use of a standardised data collection tool GPRCs also provide the largest and most complete source of primary care surveillance data of respiratory illness in Australia. The success of the GPRC model has been possible through strong partnerships with Primary Health Networks and individual general practices who rapidly shifted operations to embrace this new approach. The GPRC network offers ongoing infrastructure and workforce capability to manage other health emergencies, and may be able to be adapted to other settings.