THOUGHT CARE COULD HAVE BEEN PROVIDED BY GP
Around a quarter of the people who had visited a hospital emergency department in the past year thought, at the time of visiting, that the care they required on their most recent visit could have been provided by a general practitioner (566,400 Australians aged 15 years and over). This view was held equally by men (24%) and women (25%)
Employment status, self-assessed health and age had an effect on whether or not people thought the care they needed could have been provided by a GP. Employed people were more likely to feel that their care could have been provided by a GP than people who were unemployed or not in the labour force, and people who considered their health to be good or better were more likely to feel this than people who considered their health to be fair or poor (see Tables 4.4 and 4.5).
Figure 4.6 below shows almost a third of people aged 45 to 54 years thought the care they needed could have been provided by a GP, compared with one-sixth of people aged 75 years and over.
4.6 Thought care could have been provided by a GP on most recent visit to a hospital emergency department (a)(b), by Age
(See Table 4.5 for more detail)
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