Nada Andric

Nada is a GP working in Sydney. She is interested in improving the health of people who are marginalised in the community and their access to healthcare. She has worked in primary health in a variety of hospital and community settings and her research interests are in viral hepatitis.

Presentation

Abstract

Title: Local Partnership Pilot- a General Practitioner co-located at Community Mental Health Service

Author(s): Nada Andric

Abstract:

Inpatients with serious mental illness often have high and unmet physical health needs. There is much variation in follow up healthcare with community GP services for people on discharge while community mental health follow up is more consistent. We speculated that people would find it easier to attend a GP clinic in parallel with their psychiatrist appointment, rather than attending a GP clinic at a separate site.

In a pilot project with a community mental health clinic, we co-located an independent GP clinic each fortnight to begin to address this service gap. The scope of practice was directed toward common primary care issues- blood pressure, weight and glucose monitoring, chronic disease monitoring, and physical health changes associated with medication side effects, and was limited to the hours of service that the clinic is open.

This presentation will focus on the feedback, successes and challenges in starting this service, and propose some solutions to ensuring that these co-located services are provided and supported in the future.