General practice activity in Australia 2005-06

This publication is the 19th in the General Practice Series produced by the Australian General Practice Statistics and Classification Centre, a collaborating unit of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the University of Sydney. It reports the results of the eighth year of the BEACH program, April 2005 to March 2006. Data reported by 1,017 general practitioners on 101,700 GP-patient encounters are used to describe aspects of general practice in Australia: the general practitioners and their patients; the problems managed and the treatments provided. The contribution of practice nurses to the GP-patient encounters, in terms of their clinical activities, the problems they assist with and the Medicare items claimed, are described for the first time in this report. Information on body weight to height ratio, smoking status and alcohol use of a subsample of patients is also provided. Changes that have occurred since 1999-00 are investigated. Data for each of the last 5 years of BEACH are summarised in the appendixes to this report.