General practice quick updates for week beginning 6 July 2026
Updates for the week beginning Monday 6 July 2026.
Find this week’s quick updates and alerts for local general practices, covering the latest sector developments, education and training events, key health system updates, funding opportunities and clinical resources relevant to our region.
For more information or tailored practice support, contact our Primary Care team at [email protected].
Supporting patients to meet eligibility to register for MyMedicare
MyMedicare registration is voluntary. To register, patients must meet eligibility criteria including having received recent face-to-face services from your general practice.
In some circumstances, patients may not meet these requirements due to extenuating or unforeseen circumstances that have limited their ability to access care. In these cases, an exemption may be applied by the practice when registering the patient.
What practices need to do first:
Confirm whether the patient meets standard eligibility requirements.
Where requirements are not met, consider whether extenuating or unforeseen circumstances may apply.
Select the appropriate category on the MyMedicare Registration Form and reflect this in Health Professional Online Services (HPOS).
What practices need to know:
Exemptions can be made to support patients who have faced barriers to accessing face-to-face services, such as health, geographic or situational factors.
The updated Registration Form and system now include a dedicated tick box for extenuating or unforeseen circumstances, aligned with the Program Guidelines.
Other eligibility exemption circumstances (for example, homelessness, family and domestic violence, or following a usual GP) are captured as separate exemption categories.
These changes improve clarity for using eligibility exemptions for patient registration across practices.
Resources
See the MyMedicare Extenuating Circumstance – Fact sheet.
Further guidance is available in the MyMedicare Program Guidelines (Section 6.4 – Exemption to patient eligibility requirements) or on the MyMedicare Registration Form.
Screening saves lives: Bowel cancer awareness waiting room competition wrap-up
June was Bowel Cancer Awareness Month, and to support this important initiative, we invited general practices to participate in a waiting room display competition. The aim was to encourage the creation of engaging and creative displays that promote bowel cancer screening and help spark meaningful conversations with patients about bowel health.
The response was excellent, with practices showing strong commitment and creativity in sharing key messages. We are proud to showcase the winning displays, which brightened waiting rooms, helped educate patients and encouraged proactive health behaviours.
Thank you to all participating practices! Together, we can support early detection and help save lives.
More National Bowel Cancer Screening Program support for general practices
Explore our self‑paced quality improvement (QI) activity or get inspired by our bowel screening QI case studies!
Self-paced QI activity: Ordering National Bowel Cancer Screening kits for your patients
Case study: Bowel Cancer Screening for CALD patients
OPTMED-D study: Help us improve medication safety at discharge
The OPTMED-D study is currently evaluating the implementation of hospital pharmacist navigators in 7 hospitals across the Metro South Health and Gold Coast Health regions. The study aims to significantly reduce 30-day hospital readmissions due to medication-related harm.
Because the post-hospital discharge period has been identified as a high-risk period for medication-related harm, hospital pharmacist navigators work to:
• identify patients who are at higher risk of medication-related harm
• educate and advise high-risk patients to request a referral from their GP for a post-discharge Home Medicines Review (HMR)
• educate and advise moderate-risk patients to do a post-discharge MedsCheck with their community pharmacist and their GP will receive a copy.
What do general practitioners (GPs) need to do:
• Initiate HMR referrals when recommended by the hospital pharmacist navigator. This works best when the referral is provided promptly within 2 weeks after the patient is discharged.
• Check your inbox for new handover letters from the hospital pharmacist navigator (Secure Web Transfer) and MedsCheck reports from community pharmacists (Foxo) that will be sent as secure electronic letters to your inbox.
• A researcher from the study will contact you to follow up when one of your patients is recruited to the study and to offer:
a list of credentialed pharmacists available in your local area
a 30-minute education session.
Contact [email protected] to find out more about the trial.