Why the GP-Patient Relationship Matters for Better Health Outcomes

When most people picture a general practitioner, they picture a transaction: a short time slot, a script, a referral, a bill. As Australian healthcare becomes more focussed on politically valuable ‘ access ’, these Medicare transactions or tasks are increasingly becoming the public record of the contribution of general practice to health.

This record, however, leaves out much of how family doctors describe their work and how patients experience the GP-patient relationship. It ignores the kind of care that notices when the usually cheerful patient has gone quiet, finds a pattern to explain a number of different symptoms, supports someone during chronic illness, or allows time for the slowly built trust that enables someone to say what is really bothering them.

These voices and the care they represent are, according to a growing body of research , being pushed to the edge of a public policy that is optimised for what it can count. So how do general practitioners describe their work? And what does that mean for our community?

GPs are feeling overlooked and undervalued A new international qualitative study of generalist physicians gives language to what is otherwise hard to describe. The way general practitioners do their work is not in small services, but in ways of knowing, seeing and being with whole people, putting pieces back together and walking the healthcare journey together.

General practitioners described feeling their work was overlooked and undervalued because it was not easy to measure. They also described deep gratefulness for being invited into their patient’s lives and for meaningful complex work. Skilled generalist care is, paradoxically, most invisible exactly when it is done well.

A well-managed chronic illness that never becomes a crisis, quality preventative care that helps someone live their life, or staying with someone during suffering leaves no dramatic trace in the data. The proven benefit of general practitioners to healthcare When examined across communities, high functioning general practitioner workforces produce populations that are, on average healthier with lower mortality , fewer avoidable hospitalisations , and better management of chronic disease .

Across decades of data general practitioners are associated with increased health of populations. Some aspects of general practice have been identified that contribute to that, including comprehensiveness, continuity, patient-centredness, and management of complexity . Recent research shows that higher continuity in the relationship between GP and patient is associated with reduced mortality, emergency department visits, and admissions to hospita l.

The policy squeeze Here is the tension. Health policy internationally has been drifting toward siloed and disease focussed models of care that reward access, early diagnosis and referral to hospital care. These models reward discrete countable service provision and speed, but not relationships .

In Australia, this shows up starkly in how Medicare rebates give the largest incentives for brief encounters. Unless GPs personally absorb the financial and physical cost of taking time to listen and care, this funding model does not allow them to serve their communities in alignment with their training or expertise.

A 2025 study of Australian female GPs found that most still loved the purpose and meaning of their work, and expressed deep commitment to their patients and communities, but described unsustainable working conditions created by targeted public policy driving them out of practice .

A fee schedule built for quick episodes creates moral injury for relational clinicians and directly underfunds healthcare for people general practitioners train to serve: those who experience inequity, poverty or calamity. Time to hug your GP? The decreased practice of generalist expertise in our healthcare systems is evidenced by filling Australian emergency departments, lengthening hospital waiting lists , fragmented prescribing, and increasing demands on patients to oversee and navigate their own care .

Have you or your family already experienced this? The general practitioner community mourns the loss of support for quality relational continuity of care. It is a system quietly outsourcing policy failure onto the conscience of practitioners, most visibly those already doing the least well-remunerated, most relational work.

Relying on individual clinicians' goodwill to subsidise a public good is not sustainable. If your general practitioner is spending time to listen, understand, and care — perhaps you know about this valuable work. Is it time to give them a hug and tell them their work is not invisible to you?

Dr Johanna Lynch is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland who presents internationally and across Australia. The statements or opinions expressed in this article reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official policy of the AMA, the MJA or InSight+ unless so stated.

If you would like to submit an article for consideration, send a Word version to mjainsight-editor@ampco.com.au . Subscribe to the free InSight+ weekly newsletter here . It is available to all readers, not just registered medical practitioners.