GP Liaison Officer (GPLO) program in Southern NSW

What?

COORDINARE and Southern NSW Local Health District (SNSWLHD) established a partnership to employ four General Practitioner Liaison Officers (GPLOs) as a collaborative approach to:

• improve healthcare providers’ awareness of available services across primary and secondary care settings
• establish and enhance communication between medical practitioners across hospital and primary care
• identify system based challenges impacting on access to and quality of care provided across the region
• identify opportunities for incremental and transformational changes to improve system functionality to support health professionals in the coordination of care across the health care continuum.

Why?

A baseline GP survey was completed in each cluster area with a range of shared and specific cluster questions. More than 50 responses were received between April and May 2018 across the four clusters.

Overall, survey results indicate GPs don’t feel part of the care team when their patients are in hospital with opportunities for improved communication regarding hospitalised patients. However, communication with ED was considered generally good as was the delivery of timely discharge summaries. There was a range awareness levels across clusters of services provided by community health and overall referral into community services was considered to be poor.

How?

Each GPLO is employed to work one day per week for 12 months in one of the four geographical clusters across Southern NSW:

1. Dr Duncan MacKinnon: Bega Valley Cluster – including South Eastern Regional Hospital, Pambula and surrounding community.
2. Eurobodalla Cluster: currently vacant. 
3. Dr Melanie Dorrington: Monaro Cluster – including Cooma, Queanbeyan, Bombala and Delegate Hospitals and surrounding community.
4. Dr Roslyn Davis: Northern Cluster – including Goulburn Base, Bourke Street Health Service, Crookwell, Yass and Braidwood Hospitals and surrounding community.

You can get in touch with the GPLOs via ACT & Southern NSW HealthPathways here.

To read more, download the GPLO program in Southern NSW document here.