Little by little, general practice is having its autonomy chipped away. This time it is not another healthcare professional wanting to encroach on our scope of practice, but rather, our tools are being wrenched away.

When people ask me what the benefits of being a GP in Australia are compared with the UK where I worked before, the first thing that springs to mind is having readily available access to imaging.

In the UK, there’s a postcode lottery when it comes to imaging. For example, in London where I worked, I was unable to request any form of head imaging.

The result would be having to consider a neurology referral for concerning headaches and ED for any urgent ones. Equally, a request for an urgent ultrasound abdomen could take several months.