Canberra's chronic GP shortage could be eased within months by the opening of a $15million multi-site super clinic which promises to attract more doctors, nurses and allied health professionals to the ACT.
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Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said Ochre Health had been identified as the preferred applicant to establish the ACT's first GP super clinic and was in the process of negotiating a funding agreement with her department.
''I am pleased that negotiations are progressing well and I look forward to having more good news for Canberrans once the negotiations are completed,'' Ms Roxon said.
Ochre operates medical practices and medical recruitment services in rural and regional areas as well as general practices in Calwell and Kaleen.
Ochre chief operating officer John Burns said the company planned to operate a ''hub and spoke'' model in Canberra which provided services in the north and the south.
''We'll have a hub which will have a very strong training focus and then we'll have a spoke model where we're going into under-serviced areas of Canberra,'' Mr Burns said.
''Those spoke sites will have stand-alone medical centres but they will also feed back into the hub in terms of accessing the training. We'd have doctors, nurses and allied health practitioners shared among the network.''
It was likely the Calwell and Kaleen practices would become ''spoke'' sites.
Ochre is also hoping to soon finalise a partnership agreement to train health-care workers.
''The biggest aspect for us is about bringing new practitioners to Canberra: GPs and allied health and nurses, incorporating some existing services in the area and basically training the next generation of providers,'' he said.
Mr Burns said he had already recruited a doctor from the United Kingdom and one from the United States to work in Canberra and would be seeking more to help staff the super clinic.
''At the moment we're looking at overseas recruitment from Canada, the UK and the US and also from interstate,'' he said.
''But rather than take doctors from other areas, we really want to look at the training of that next wave. As the medical students come out of ANU we want to give them opportunities and actually retain them in the market.''
Mr Burns said many younger doctors were attracted to working in the collaborative care model offered in super clinics.
''They also want to have more flexible work arrangements, which a group centre allows,'' he said.
''And you actually find that with some of the more-established doctors - particularly in Canberra, which has quite a lot of small one and two-doctor practices - it actually extends their working life because they can take leave and in a work environment where they can bounce ideas off their peers.''
ACT Labor MPs Gai Brodtmann and Andrew Leigh praised the clinic's focus on providing better outcomes and convenience for patients.
The Federal Government is investing $650million in more than 60 GP super clinics.
