GP appointments: Brad and Rebecca Elliott, new owners of Cairns West Medical Centre, never want to turn away a patient
A cure has arrived for Cairns patients who can’t get in to see a doctor. How this husband and wife team has a plan to never turn people away.
Cairns
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NEW owners of Cairns West Medical Centre have big hearts for their patients and big ambitions for their practice, which will relocate to 1/70 Anderson St, Manunda, on Friday, August 26.
Rebecca and Bradley Elliott, traditionally rural doctors who practised in Ingham for 15 years, do not want to close their doors, or their books, to any future patient and have planned an operating model that allows them to arrange for same-day appointments.
Bradley Elliott said they wanted to reproduce the practice model they operated within in Ingham, one that offered a “one stop shop” to patients.
“A lot of places in Cairns do close their books. Our intent is to never close our books at all,” he said.
“I’ve been in Cairns now for six weeks and I have noticed patients coming in saying ‘I’ve called 15 doctors and I can’t get seen’, and these patients end up in the emergency department where they don’t need to be.
“The real quality of being a GP is continuity of care – getting to know your patients and being there for all the issues they have.
“When you start to get fragmentation of care, going to one doctor for this and another doctor for that, that’s when you start to see poor health outcomes and it starts to cost the system significantly more.”
The new building on Anderson St allows the practice to increase its doctor numbers from four to eight. It also allows for more nursing staff, fundamental to the plans for same-day appointments.
Rebecca Elliott said it’s important to offer that kind of comprehensive care to patients.
“As we come from a rural background, a strength is our ownership of care,” she said.
“It’s a privilege to be able to look after your own patients if they’ve woken up with something untoward, not just chronic issues.
“Our aim for patients is we will get them assessed and triaged by a nurse, and the doctor will then have the capacity to then see them even if we’re fully booked.”
The practice will continue to bulk bill for children, pensioners, DVA and health care card holders.
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Originally published as GP appointments: Brad and Rebecca Elliott, new owners of Cairns West Medical Centre, never want to turn away a patient
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