The college pushes for GPs to be more involved in tackling modern slavery.
General practice advocates have made their stance clear on assisting in the fight against modern slavery, in the RACGP’s government stakeholder consultation response.
The response was to the NSW Department of Communities and Justice on the It’s Healthy to Fight Modern Slavery stakeholder consultation, with the college supporting the document along with providing suggestions for further assistance.
The RACGP expressed concerns over the limited representation of general practice and advocated for the role of GPs in identifying modern slavery and its related health consequences.
“GPS can play a really important role here, firstly because it is a health issue – and it does cause health issues – to actually manage the actual health issue that the patient is coming in for, but also to do safety planning with our patients as well [so] we can increase their safety,” RACGP Specific Interest Abuse and Violence in Families group deputy chair Associate Professor Jennifer Neil told The Medical Republic.
“As GPs, we’re able to have longitudinal relationships with patients over time. We can actually follow our patients up so that we can continue to work with them to try and keep them safe.
“This is where training in how to do risk assessments and safety planning is really important for general practitioners.”
Integrating anti modern slavery measures into pre-existing domestic violence measures has been pushed as an effective method for GPs to assist in prevention efforts with the Modern Slavery Comprehensive Assessment Tool.
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However, this current model has been criticised for not being feasible within the time constraints of a standard GP consultation time.
A shorter assessment tool has been proposed for both GPs and other first responders to provide clear referral pathways for specialist services and comprehensive support.
Another criticism of current models is that cited case studies are based in emergency departments and do not reflect typical GP working conditions.
The RACGP has instead called for the establishment of more accessible referral pathways to emergency services to strengthen the resource.
“Part of the problem is that a lot of doctors just don’t realise that this is actually much more common than they would realise within society,” Professor Neil told TMR.
“It’s likely that GPs will come across people being subjected to modern slavery within their practices.
“Part of the report will be to make sure that GPs are getting this information and learning more about it.”
