Here’s an update on a few of the issues AMA Victoria is working on for members, including:

• Albury Wodonga Health- supporting an independent medical voice
• Cohealth closures and the future of community health
• Community Pharmacist Program expansion protocols
• Review of Victoria’s energy life support customer framework.

Albury Wodonga Health- supporting an independent medical voice

Senior medical staff at Albury Wodonga Health have recently established an independent Senior Medical Staff Association (SMSA) to provide a clear and representative voice for clinicians within the organisation. The SMSA was created to ensure that senior doctors have a forum for open discussion and independent representation, distinct from structures controlled by the health service board and executive.

AMA Victoria and ASMOF Victoria provided technical and industrial advice to assist in its establishment, consistent with support offered at other Victorian health services. This guidance was given in response to direct approaches from senior doctors seeking to form an independent body. Our role has been advisory only, limited to matters of process and governance.

While our involvement has been confined to technical advice, the SMSA’s formation marks an important step in strengthening professional engagement at Albury Wodonga Health. It provides senior doctors with an independent avenue to raise matters affecting clinical practice, culture and governance, and its resolutions should be afforded due weight by management and government as considered expressions of collective medical opinion.

AMA Victoria and ASMOF Victoria will continue to provide technical advice where requested, and support constructive engagement between clinicians, health service leadership and government.

Cohealth closures and the future of community health

AMA Victoria has written to the Victorian and Commonwealth Health Ministers as part of our ongoing advocacy on community health sustainability, following cohealth’s announcement that it will close its Collingwood clinic and end general practice services at Fitzroy and Kensington by December 2025.

Cohealth has cited chronic underfunding and the limits of Medicare’s consultation model as key reasons for its decision. Those pressures are real and reflect shared responsibility between governments. The Commonwealth’s Medicare settings have not kept pace with the realities of complex, multidisciplinary care, while Victoria’s community health system has faced years of constrained funding and ageing infrastructure.

These combined pressures have now created deep uncertainty for patients and staff. Anxiety is spreading across the community health workforce, and instability is growing. Whatever the funding or jurisdictional complexities, the issue must be resolved quickly so that services and staff can continue to deliver care with confidence.

AMA Victoria has urged both governments to work together to stabilise community health, provide the necessary funding to keep cohealth’s GP services open, and commit to long-term resourcing of Victoria’s community health sector. Community health is central to prevention, early intervention and equitable access to care. When it falters, hospitals fill, inequity deepens and system costs rise.

We will continue to engage constructively with both levels of government to protect patients, support the workforce and sustain community health for the long term.

Community Pharmacist Program expansion protocols

AMA Victoria has provided feedback to Safer Care Victoria on three draft protocols under the expanded Community Pharmacist Program (CPP), covering hormonal contraception, impetigo and acute musculoskeletal pain. Our feedback reflects members’ views and identifies significant clinical, ethical and governance concerns.

AMA Victoria made clear to Safer Care Victoria that we do not support the CPP or its expansion. The model fragments care, creates conflicts of interest and substitutes protocols for clinical judgment. Pharmacists are valued colleagues in medication supply and advice, but are not trained or equipped to diagnose or manage undifferentiated presentations. Prescribing and dispensing by the same practitioner present unavoidable conflicts.

The draft protocols extend pharmacist activity into diagnostic decision making. They rely on incomplete patient information, inconsistent access to My Health Record and undefined supervision, auditing and accountability processes. These gaps risk misdiagnosis, delayed treatment and loss of clinical continuity.

AMA Victoria also raised concerns about inadequate privacy and infrastructure standards in community pharmacies, unrealistic expectations of clinical assessment, and the absence of clear communication pathways with general practice. Documentation and follow-up mechanisms remain weak and impose unresourced burdens on GPs who must manage complications or incomplete episodes of care.

We have urged Safer Care Victoria and the Department of Health to pause further implementation and instead strengthen access to general practice and genuine team-based models of care that support safe, coordinated, doctor-led treatment.

Review of Victoria’s energy life support customer framework- update

Last month we wrote to members about the Essential Services Commission’s (ESC) review of Victoria’s rules for protecting people who rely on electricity- or gas-powered life support equipment at home.

The ESC has since provided further detail on the areas where it is seeking practitioner feedback, refining and expanding on the same themes raised in the consultation paper. These include:

• the practical challenges doctors face when confirming life support needs
• whether the proposed critical/assistive distinction is workable and what risks it might create
• whether alternative ways of categorising patients (for example, by equipment type or tolerance to power loss) might better support triage during outages
• and whether conversations about back-up planning can realistically occur within standard consultations.

The ESC also noted its thinking has evolved in response to feedback from consumer advocates. It is reconsidering whether periodic re-confirmation places unreasonable burden on patients whose needs are unlikely to change. It also received significant feedback that the proposed medical confirmation form was too long, unclear, and not accessible to patients or practitioners. As a result, the ESC has paused engagement on the form until after its final decisions are made.

AMA Victoria remains open to member feedback on any aspect of the review, particularly from GPs and specialists who complete life support confirmations.

Members can view the consultation paper Better Protections for Life Support Customers in Victoria here. Feedback can be provided to Lewis Horton at [email protected].