GPs are at the centre of the AMA’s federal election demands with calls to fund a wide range of primary care initiatives including a new Medicare item for longer consults to address complex health issues.

Launching the campaign last week, AMA President Dr Omar Khorshid said Medicare was “stuck in the 1980s” and no longer met the health needs of patients that had become more complex as the population aged.

He said it was time the Federal Government recognised the pressure GPs were under to keep healthcare affordable and accessible with out-of-date Medicare funding.

“Doctors working in general practice have been forced time and time again to wear the brunt of these real cuts to Medicare,” Dr Khorshid said.