OECD highlights need for accessible GP services

Decades of success in cutting deaths from heart attacks and strokes are at risk unless governments ensure patients have affordable access to primary health care, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has warned, adding to pressure on the Federal Government to dump its controversial freeze on Medicare rebates.

As the AMA intensifies its campaign against the four-year freeze, which is set to drive down GP bulk billing rates and force up patient out-of-pocket costs, the OECD has said that affordable and accessible primary care is essential if the world is to build upon a 60 per cent decline in the cardiovascular disease mortality rate in the past 50 years.