03/06/2026
Cohealth review highlights shared responsibility and the path forward
AMA Victoria welcomes the release of the Review into cohealth's General Practice and Related Services: Final Report.
We have consistently advocated for the report to be released publicly. Given the significance of the issues involved, and their impact on patients, clinicians and communities, transparency matters.
While we are still working through the report in detail, our initial view is that it provides a balanced assessment of a complex situation.
Importantly, the review rejects simplistic explanations. It does not conclude that the inadequacy of Medicare rebates and funding arrangements for complex multidisciplinary care alone led to this situation. Nor does it place responsibility solely on cohealth. Instead, it points to a combination of factors, including Commonwealth funding settings, longstanding pressures on community health infrastructure and capacity, the characteristics of the patient population, and cohealth's own governance and management.
The review's recommendations are directed to the Victorian Government, the Commonwealth Government and cohealth itself. That seems appropriate. The review makes clear that all three contributed to the circumstances that led to this situation and all three have a role to play in addressing it.
The review also highlights the patients at the centre of this issue. It identifies high rates of chronic disease, mental illness, homelessness, refugee status and financial hardship among cohealth patients. Many require longer consultations, continuity of care and coordinated multidisciplinary support. Almost 40 per cent were assessed as being at urgent or high risk of hospitalisation.
Many of these patients cannot simply find another doctor down the road. They rely on trusted clinical relationships built over many years and on models of care that bring together general practitioners, nurses, allied health professionals and community services under one roof. For some, losing those services means losing the wraparound support that helps address both medical and social needs.
It is also important to recognise the clinicians who choose to work in these services. Many community health doctors could earn considerably more in private practice or elsewhere in the health system. They work in community health because of a commitment to vulnerable patients and communities. That commitment has sustained these services for many years, but goodwill alone cannot sustain them indefinitely.
Some of the governance and management issues identified by the review are specific to cohealth. However, the broader pressures facing community health are real. Victoria's community health sector provides care to people who are often unable to access or navigate mainstream services and delivers enormous value to both patients and the wider health system.
The review should end any suggestion that this was simply a cohealth problem. It identifies failures and pressures that extend beyond a single organisation and raises important questions about how governments, health services and the sector support care for some of Victoria's most vulnerable communities.
AMA Victoria will now work through the report's findings and recommendations in detail and engage closely with our members working within cohealth and community health regarding the practical reforms needed to support patients, strengthen these services and secure their long-term sustainability.
For the patients, clinicians and communities affected, the measure of success will not be the report itself. It will be what happens next.
A redacted version of Review of cohealth general practice and related services, final report.
