General practices once proudly displayed their individual practitioner’s names on plates at the entrance. We see this less and less these days.

Now it’s common for the sign at the front entrance to display just the practice name and trading hours, with after-hours care directed to anonymous locum services or hospital emergency departments. 

Over recent years, an increasing proportion of GPs have become less available to their patients through working part-time or flexible hours, as contractors within corporate-owned practices.

The door to entrepreneurial ownership was opened when GPs successfully lobbied for corporatisation of their practice structures, which provided superannuation tax advantages, as is legitimately enjoyed by all other small business owners.