As part of our reopening plan, we are equipping GPs and community pharmacies with additional support so that they can remain open to the Tasmanian community when COVID-19 arrives in our State.
We know that with a highly vaccinated population, the majority of COVID-19 positive people will experience low-to-mild symptoms and won’t require hospitalisation.
Through our COVID@home program, GPs and community pharmacies will play a vital part in supporting the recovery of those who test positive to COVID-19 in their home setting and will be key to providing ongoing care for people’s usual care needs including medication management.
That’s why we are supporting GPs to work with us – so that they can keep their doors open and see patients in the community when that’s the right setting for them. This includes patients with respiratory symptoms.
To do that, our GPs and their clinic staff will have clear guidelines to follow when a positive patient is seen in their clinic and understand what impact that has on the ongoing running of their clinic. Adequate and appropriate PPE is an important part of this.
This is why today we have announced that we are extending the Primary Healthcare Grant with an additional $2 million to ensure GPs and community pharmacies are COVID-ready as we reopen our borders.
This grant will be delivered through Primary Health Tasmania to:
Importantly, this will mean that our smaller, suburban or rural GPs will be able to remain open to continue to provide expert patient care as we reopen the border.
Providing a transitional partnering payment to GPs will appropriately recognise the time that may be required to extract and provide information to the COVID@Home team for patients who consent to participate.
Collaboration and engagement with GPs and community care partners is a critical component of the COVID@Home program, and we will continue to work with primary care and GPs, particularly to assess if and when our care models need to adapt and change to provide care in particular for the low-risk patients.