Hunter New England Health and Forster Private Hospital are pleased to announce that local GPs are now able to admit eligible patients directly to public inpatient services provided at Forster Private Hospital.

The new arrangements came into place from Wednesday 1 July. 

Hunter New England Health Lower Mid North Coast Cluster General Manager Lee Davidson said it was always planned to allow local GPs to admit patients that meet the eligibility criteria, directly to the public inpatient services at Forster Private Hospital. 

“As part of our plan we tried to ensure that all the processes were working smoothly before we extended the service from direct transfers of patients from Manning Hospital to local GPs admitting eligible patients directly.”
 
“Since we commenced public inpatient services at Forster Private on 11 March this year we have had 24 patients. We are very pleased to deliver on our commitment to provide public hospital services closer to home for people living in the Great Lakes region,” Ms Davidson said.

Forster Private Hospital General Manager Karon Devenish met with local GPs from the Great Lakes region to inform them of the changes.

“The GPs welcomed the news as they will be able to continue caring for their patients while in Forster Private Hospital and follow up once they are discharged.”

“I would advise patients to talk to their doctors to check to see if they meet the eligibility criteria for the low acuity public inpatient services provided at Forster Private,” Ms Devenish said.

‘Low acuity’ services generally refers to hospital treatment and care that does not require the full time attention of a specialist. These low acuity medical services will include step down surgical patients from Manning Hospital, patients awaiting aged care placement and palliative care. General medical patients who are unwell and cannot be cared for at home, but do not require specialised care may also be eligible.

People who are acutely unwell or seriously injured will still need to travel to Manning Hospital, which offers more specialised care. 

Not all patients can be admitted to the public services at Forster Private Hospital. The following services are not included in the contractual arrangement and therefore will not be available to public inpatients at Forster:

This includes paediatric, obstetric, acute psychiatric, acute delirium, medically unstable, intensive or acute rehabilitation and acute surgical (operations at Forster Private Hospital are excluded from this arrangement). Note: Some of these services may be available to private patients of Forster Private Hospital.

Contact: Tanya Carlyle

Phone: (02) 49392 602