GPs and Psychiatrists Working Together: Literature Review

This literature review was completed to inform the development of the Access to Psychiatry component of the Better Outcomes in Mental Health Care Initiative.
This literature review is about general practitioners and psychiatrists working together in the interest of their patients, how it has been done over the last twenty or so years and what has been learned. What has become clear with this review is that General practitioners and psychiatrists do not work in isolation. Both are dependent on systems of remuneration, fee-for-service and Medicare in the case of GPs and private psychiatrists, Government funding from many different ‘buckets’ for the Divisions of General Practice and State Mental Health funding in the case of publicly employed psychiatrists and mental health workers. Thus working together involves the interaction of professional cultures, systems and bureaucracies, not to mention pharmaceutical companies.
Better Outcomes in Mental Health Care Initiative; Access to Psychiatry Primary Mental Health Care Australian Resource Centre (PARC)