Dr. Angus Chambers: GenPro Chair voices concerns that a duopoly may be developing in our health sector

There are growing concerns around a possible duopoly forming in our primary health sector. 

General practice owners are calling out what they see as bloated bureaucracy, and are moving to form a breakaway nationwide Primary Health Organisation (PHO). 

GenPro chair Dr. Angus Chambers told Mike Hosking that doctors, 'see that we're heading towards the supermarket-like situation.'

He said that some PHOs are good, but they are usually more local, community-driven groups. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Some concerns in our primary health sector. General practice owners
calling out what they call bloated bureaucracy moving to form
a breakaway nationwide primary health organization or a PHO. They
argue the large corporations or corporates running most phos have
conflicts of interest. Doctor Ingus Chambers is the chair of
GMPRO and as with us aying this morning, good morning,

(00:20):
you'd favor you say, a lean, cost effective PHO. What's
a lean, cost effective PHO.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, we would like to see as much as possible
of this funding going through the front line. So that's
part of the leanness that we don't have a large
organization that sucks up a lot of that resource. The
other thing that's part of that is service delivery. We
think it's better to deliver services through our practices, and
yet a lot of phos have created large service arms that,

(00:50):
again we think is inefficient and take spunding away from
getting to the front lines.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
When I ring a doctor for an appointment, do you
reckon I know whether the doctor's part of a PHO,
and do I care?

Speaker 2 (01:01):
You probably don't and you probably don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
And so why is this important?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
It's important for the practices because as you practices do
know whether they're part of a PHO or not. You
have to be part of a PHO, but almost everybody is.
So it's a question of they're responsible for passing through
a large government funding and so the PHO that would
pass through as much funny as possible for the practice
might well be beneficial to both that practice and their patients.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
So what I'm seeing here is that as an individual practitioner,
I go, well, look there's synergies here. If I joined
sixteen other gps and we'll have a PHO, will be
part of a PHO. But somewhere along the line, everyone
eats everybody and you end up with a couple of
major corporates, and then we start to worry. Is that
it in a nutshell?

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Not really, but certainly we are worried about the inexorable
advent of the corporate corporates becoming the dominant players in
the practice teams. And we see that we're heading towards
the cuta market like situation. We've got a due opily
a triopoly, so that certainly those concerns are worrying.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
But if I'm a GP and I've joined a PHO
and I share your concerns about the money coming through
to my practice, why don't I pull out?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, it's a matter of having an alternative, isn't it.
And this is what we're hoping to provide, an alternative
that's very attractive to our members and good for our patients.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
So you're good. So you're adding to the competitive or
the competition model, which is good, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, Look, I think there's an element that competition can
be good in these in this situation. And look, there
are some phos that are actually quite good if they
tend to be the smaller, more LinkedIn of their communities
and practices at phos. But certainly we think a bit
of competitive tension it wouldn't necessarily be bad.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
All right, nice to talk to you, Angus. I appreciate
doctor Angus Chambers. I hope you understood that when you
go to the doctor doesn't mean you're costom going to
the doctor. That's going to come down, of course it doesn't.
It's like Lumino. It's the same as Lumino thing of
the dentists. So you used to go to a dentist,
Bob sold out to Lumini. It's the same thing.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
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