Armadale Health Service to have new afterhours GP clinic

30/9/98

Residents in the Armadale/Kelmscott region will have easier access to after hours health services following an announcement today to establish a new after hours general practice clinic at Armadale Health Service.

At the same time, Health Minister John Day also announced the signing of an agreement with the successful tenderer to operate Australia's first 24 hour free health call centre.

"Both of these special initiatives, involving general practitioners and innovative new call centre technology, demonstrate the Government's commitment to providing convenient health services closer to where people live," Mr Day said.

"On a local community level, Armadale/Kelmscott residents will greatly benefit by an after-hours general practice clinic close to home while on a wider scale, all Perth residents will benefit by being able to get medical advice or information, at any time, simply by picking up the telephone."

Mr Day said the State Government had entered into an agreement with the Perth South East Division of General Practice to fund an after hours GP clinic at the Service.

"The people of the south-east metropolitan region deserve to have a comprehensive, state-of-the-art public health service near where they live," he said.

"The GP clinic is another initiative which is part of the redevelopment of the Armadale Health Service.

"A new world-class public hospital will be operational on the Armadale site by early 2001.

"However, the Armadale-Kelmscott community does not have to wait until then for better services - the State Government is being pro-active now."

Mr Day said that an important part of bringing the redevelopment program had been to upgrade the staffing and services at the Armadale-Kelmscott Memorial Hospital's emergency department.

He said new doctors had been appointed and new on-call rosters for specialist medical practitioners were now available.

"It is important to note that the new after-hours General Practice clinic will be a complementary service to the emergency department at Armadale-Kelmscott Memorial Hospital - not a replacement service," the Minister said.

"The proposal from the general practitioners is for the clinic to be open between 6 pm and 10 pm Monday to Friday, and between 1pm and 10pm on Saturday and Sunday.

"It will operate from the Community Health Centre at Armadale Health Service.

"One general practitioner will be permanent while others will be rostered or on call. There will be two nurses and other support staff.

"The new service will ensure easy access to the general public and has the added advantage of back-up specialist support and diagnostic facilities such as radiology and pathology - after hours."

The clinic has a number of special features which will benefit users, general practitioners and the AHS.

For example, the clinic will be:

·      owned and managed by GPs;

·      only open after hours;

·      able to transfer information to the patient's own GP; and -

·      complementary to existing GP practices; staffed by general practitioners on roster with a core GP/manager; and linked to a training program in acute medical care.

"Since the Premier announced the redevelopment of the Armadale Hospital in 1997, we have seen a number of new services start here," Mr Day said.

"For example, renal dialysis, expanded obstetric services and endoscopy procedures are now being performed at Armadale Health Service and, only last week, a new child and adolescent mental health clinic satellite service was opened at Kelmscott."

Referring to the second announcement, Mr Day said an agreement had been reached with High Performance Healthcare to supply the new Health Call Centre.

The $6 million joint State/Commonwealth initiative, which was announced two months ago, would provide better after hours assistance and counselling 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

High Performance Health Care had been providing telephone-based health information and advice services in Australia for more than 10 years.

The new call centre would allow people throughout Perth to telephone 24-hours-a-day seeking advice, information and referrals from qualified health professionals.

"People will be connected to an experienced nurse who will assess the level of care they need and the urgency of the situation, before providing immediate advice," Mr Day said.

"Where professional help is required, the operator, drawing on a geographic database of health care providers will advise the caller of the closest available service.

" For the call centre to be able to operate properly there is a need for GPs to be available to the public after hours."

The Health Call Centre will have a free 1800 number and should be operational by the end of November. The service will be trialed in the metropolitan area and, if successful, will be extended to rural and remote districts.

Media contact: Kaye Hopkins 9213 6600