Question Time

MODBURY GP PLUS SUPER CLINIC

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (14:55): My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Can the minister update the house on the GP arrangements at the Modbury GP Plus Super Clinic?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (14:55): I thank the member for Florey for the question, and I acknowledge her extraordinary advocacy on behalf of the community in relation to many services but particularly in health where I know she is a real champion of the local community.

I am very pleased to inform her and the house that a new local general practitioner service provider, known as Health Services at Modbury Pty Ltd, has been contracted to provide general practitioner services at the GP Plus Super Clinic in Modbury. The new service at Modbury will start next Monday, with the equivalent of two full-time GPs offering services to the local community. They will replace the locums who have been providing services over the last six months.

The clinic's GP services will continue to be offered from nine in the morning until six in the evenings, Monday to Friday, and from nine until 12.30 on Saturday. I am advised that, as patient demand grows, the number of doctors and the opening hours will increase.

Health Services at Modbury Pty Ltd is a member of a group of general practitioner practices which have a proven track record of providing general practitioner services in the north-eastern suburbs of Adelaide. So, the member I am sure will be pleased to know that they know that local community very well. The GP Plus Super Clinic Modbury operates across two campuses at Smart Road, Modbury and Gilles Crescent in Hillcrest and provides a wide range of primary healthcare services.

At Smart Road, for example, the focus is on chronic disease management, counselling, early intervention and prevention services, general practitioner services, public dental services for both adults and children, specialist clinical services, and nursing and allied health, such as speech pathology, occupational therapy and dietetics.

At Gilles Crescent, the focus is on chronic disease management and delivering health services for specific population groups such as the local Aboriginal community, various local refugee communities, people who are financially and socially disadvantaged and children and their families. I was very pleased to visit there recently with the member for Torrens.

These services have the ability to work in tandem to make sure that people get the very best support to help them stay healthy and to stay out of hospital. Since the first services opened in November 2010, the two sites have provided about 31,560 services and they are well on their way to achieving the 2012-13 projection of providing some 43,400 examples of service. Importantly, the GP service provides an alternative to hospital emergency departments for people with less serious conditions and chronic health problems.

The GP Plus Super Clinic at Modbury, along with the Noarlunga clinic that we officially opened on Tuesday, have been established in partnership with the commonwealth government and are part of the state government's wider network of GP Plus Health Care Centres and GP Plus Super Clinics being established across our state. We expect work to start on the new GP Plus Health Care Centre at Port Pirie in October later this year, which I know the member for that area is aware of.

These centres and clinics are an important part of our strategy to help South Australians to maintain good health, to better manage their health conditions and to avoid visits to hospitals where they can. I commend those in my department who have been working very hard to get these contracts in place and I wish the service all the very best.