GP Assist

Commencing 1st March 2004, Patrick Street Clinic will utilise the services of GP Assist to screen our after hours phone calls.  After hours clinics will remain unchanged.  This will not affect the standard of care you receive.

How to contact GP Assist

The number for patients to be diverted or referred by answer phone to is: 1300 780 011
email: admin@gpat.com.au

For faxing instructions or special patient information: GP Assist Facsimile:  6273 1405

GP Assist (Tasmania) 

GP Assist (Tasmania) -  “GP Assist “ - is a Commonwealth Government funded after hours General Practice support initiative, available to GPs throughout Tasmania. The GP Assist program has evolved from the successful After Hours Primary Medical Care Trial (AHPMCT) which commenced in Southern Tasmania in 1999 and has since been continuously operated by the “After Hours Doctor” service, based in Hobart. 

The GP Assist program has been developed in recognition of the onerous after hours responsibilities borne by General Practitioners, especially those in rural locations, with the aim of enhancing GP recruitment and retention through the provision of practical out-of-hours support.  The service assists General Practitioners by offering telephone diversion or re-direction of patient calls to a dedicated after hours advice centre for initial assessment and clinical guidance.  Calls are initially received and managed by a specially trained nurse assisted by internationally recognised and tested decision support software.  Where appropriate the call is referred to a designated triage doctor for further assessment and patient advice.  Only if the triage doctor determines that local GP attention is indicated is the call returned to the local, nominated on-call doctor via the personal referral of the triage doctor concerned.

Experience in Southern Tasmania has demonstrated that up to 75% of calls may be suitably managed without referral back to the local GP.  Since its inception the After Hours Doctor telephone advice facility has handled around 35,000 calls.  Evaluation studies have indicated a high level of patient and staff satisfaction and have not demonstrated any increased patient self-referral to local Emergency Departments or the Ambulance Service.

The GP Assist service is freely available to rural General Practitioners and does not affect eligibility for the Practice Incentives Payments (PIP) in respect of after hours care. General Practitioners using GP Assist may use the service as and when they choose, there is no obligation to use it all of the time. The majority of GPs in Southern Tasmania have chosen to use it continuously but some may prefer to use it intermittently or simply as a ‘back up’ when they are temporarily inaccessible to their patients. 

Since the GP Assist service is not advertised publicly to patients it does not impose on the after hours arrangements of those GPs who wish to continue to provide exclusively their own after hours arrangements.

How GP Assist works

  • The patient rings their usual General Practitioner.  If that practice has opted to use the “GP Assist Tasmania” service at that time the call is diverted or referred by answering machine message to a 1300 780 011 number (at local call cost).
  • The 1300 780 011 call is answered by a nurse employed by “GP Assist (Tasmania)” and patient details are recorded.  In the event of an acute emergency (e.g. collapse) the nurse will immediately arrange an ambulance.
  • If the nurse is already busy with another patient the call is answered by a medical receptionist who collects the patient demographic details.  In the event of an acute emergency (e.g. collapse) the receptionist will immediately arrange an ambulance. The call is otherwise subsequently passed to the nurse.
  • The nurse, using internationally-recognised computer algorithms (“teleguides”), then provides advice to the patient.  If that advice recommends a non-urgent GP disposition e.g. attention by a doctor prior to the next working day, or the nurse is in any doubt, the call is then referred to the duty triage doctor.
  • The duty triage doctor (an independently contracted registered medical practitioner experienced in delivering triage advice and guided by agreed protocols) further assesses the call and formulates the most appropriate action to be taken by, or on behalf of, the patient.
  • Where the triage doctor concludes that local advice/consultation is required, this doctor personally contacts the local on-call GP.  The triage doctor does not prescribe any type of service (e.g. home visit) for the patient but simply refers the case, by a personal phone call,  to the local on-call GP (to whom the call would otherwise have been directed in the first instance.) 


The outcome of this approach is that the local on-call GP is only alerted (by another doctor) for those calls which justify immediate, local attention.

Please talk to your doctor if you have any concerns regarding GP ASSIST