The Victorian Department of Health recognises the centrality of general practice as the first point of contact for primary medical care in the Australian health system. In December 2007, The Minister for Health launched the Working with General Practice Position Statement, that articulated the vision of the collaborative interface between general practice and the Department.
During the consultation phase associated with the Position Statement, it emerged that stakeholders felt that State government information about and for general practice was scattered across a number of websites and was difficult to locate. As a result, the Department committed through the Position Statement to: create and maintain a central, online General Practice Web Portal to make it easier for the general practice sector to access information published by the Victorian Government, therefore making it easier to comply with Victorian legislation and regulations and to understand and participate in state-wide initiatives. GPV were involved in the web portal development and have been consulted on its content, GPs consulted in this process were very positive about its simplicity and its potential application.
The General Practice Web Portal is now operational.
The web portal can be accessed at this address: www.health.vic.gov.au/generalpractice
