‘Ageing in place’ won’t be feasible without adequate funding and support for GPs, the RACGP says.
The RACGP is urging the government to address “administrative barriers” to GP care in residential aged care homes (RACHs) and structural discrimination of Australians as they age.
In its latest position statement, the RACGP called on the government to support sustainable GP-led care for older people as they enter RACHs, with three main asks across 20 recommendations.
Namely, address funding and incentives that discourage GPs from working in RACHs, strengthen multidisciplinary teamwork and the aged care workforce pipeline, and ensure trauma-informed, culturally safe care for priority populations.
These recommendations, the RACGP argued, would allow improved access to high-quality, coordinated primary care for older people, reducing preventable hospitalisations and minimising the strain on tertiary care capacity.
According to Lumos data for NSW, between 2016 and 2021, RACH residents had seven times the rate of ambulance episodes, six times the rate of unplanned hospital admissions, and almost double the prevalence of preventable hospital admissions compared with the average.
RACGP president Dr Michael Wright said the position statement was the college’s most recent attempt to recognise the more complex care GPs provide and the need for adequate funding.
One of the college’s calls was for a “substantial increase” in the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive (GPACI), which currently reimburses GPs $300 per patient each year and practices $130 per patient each year.
The RACGP said the current GPACI was insufficient to account for the “significant” unpaid time spent on travel, liaising with onsite RACH staff, communicating with families, and writing scripts.
“Early insights have shown that the incentive is very complicated and puts a lot of administrative burden on practices,” Dr Wright said.
The DoHDA has commissioned the management consultancy Nous Group to conduct a comprehensive evaluation and monitoring of the incentive from 2024 to 2027.
The college also called for more funding for lengthy consultations to support more complex care and for amending the case conferencing Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items so they could be billable only when two specialists, including the GP, are present.
“This would be a more than adequate comprehensive case conference. Remunerating this would make it much more flexible to collaborate with other specialists and to provide patients with access to the advice they need,” Dr Wright said.
But this would also require increased team responsiveness and capability through formal mentoring and more training placements in aged care, similar to the Prevocational General Practice Placements Program, especially in rural areas, the RACGP said.
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The college recommended a more integrated, team-based approach to aged care, warning that growing fragmentation could otherwise threaten quality medication management.
This included interoperable record systems between RACHs and general practice, higher minimum staffing levels to ensure 24/7 on-site registered nurses, and greater GP access to non-GP specialists via programs such as Mater Hospital’s eConsultation.
With nearly two-thirds of Australians aged 75 and over regularly taking five or more medicines, the college said GP involvement in secondary and non-GP specialist care was essential to prevent medication non-adherence, hospitalisation and fatal drug incidents, including accidental overdose.
The RACGP also encouraged pairing My Health Record with an interoperable clinical information system, cautioning against using it as a complete patient medical record – “meaningful use between all providers is still to be achieved”.
With dementia now the leading cause of death in Australia, the RACGP called for GP-dementia diagnoses to be formally recognised for eligibility for Support at Home and for access to dementia-specific medications.
Currently, only a diagnosis from a geriatrician or neurologist is recognised under the Integrated Assessment Tool, a requirement that also restricts access to dementia-specific medications, including acetylcholinesterase inhibitors.
With more than half of Australians over 65 having a disability, the RACGP said it was “unacceptable for older people to be eligible for less disability support as they age rather than more”.
GPs had been excluded from NDIS assessments since the NDIA’s official needs assessment tool, I-CAN, launched mid-year.
This was cemented last week when the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 passed the Senate, confirming assessments would be carried out by trained and accredited independent assessors – primarily allied health professionals.
It’s a decision the RACGP said made navigating health, disability and ageing “unnecessarily complex” due to GPs’ lack of formal recognition by the NDIA.
“Where GPs do contribute to NDIS processes, Medicare rebates are not payable if the patient is not present,” the statement read.
But the RACGP insisted GPs receive remuneration for paperwork when the patient isn’t clinically required to be present.
Lastly, improved trauma-informed care for older people from priority populations through whole-person care that is safe and responsive to complex human experiences, as outlined in the RACGP’s 5th Edition White Book.
The RACGP called for increased investment in ACCHOs to deliver culturally safe, trauma-informed care and to support Indigenous leadership and community involvement in aged care decisions and services.
Tailoring aged care to LGBTQIA+ and culturally and linguistically diverse patients, who may have a higher prevalence of chronic health conditions and face barriers to access, was also marked out as essential.
“In our meetings with politicians and Department of Health staff, we’ll be highlighting these recommendations, which are really solutions to improving appropriate access to care for aged care patients. We know general practice is the most cost-effective part of the health system,” Dr Wright said.
Read the RACGP’s position statement here.
