Dr David Bratt is first and foremost a General Practitioner who spent 30 years in front-line general practice enjoying the delivery of individual face-to-face health services. In 2002 a new opportunity presented itself to improve patients’ access to specialist secondary services and close the gap in the primary/secondary interface with his appointment to the new position of GP Liaison and Primary Care Advisor to Capital and Coast DHB. This exposure to a large multilayered organisation required a whole new set of skills and an understanding of the relatively slow pace of change possible compared to a typical small business general practice. A further leap into the unknown occurred in 2007 with his appointment to the new position of Principal Health Advisor to the Ministry of Social Development. This is General Practice at a systems level – working with a population around the wider social determinants of health – employment, income, housing, education, and access to health services. In this position he had to opportunity to work on collecting together the substantial body of evidence on the health benefits of work, and the significant adverse health outcomes of worklessness.

"The Dummies Guide to Welfare Reform - does it matter to the GP?" 

Many of a GP's heart-sink patients are Sickness Beneficiaries. This seminar will provide some strategies to ease the stress and look to a better outcome. 

The Government has heralded a new way of working with beneficiaries so what will this mean for you at the medical coalface? What is the evidence to support a different approach? What has the experiences of the UK GPs been with their welfare reforms and how can we learn from this and avoid their mistakes. Remember 13% of working age adults live on a tax-payer funded welfare benefit and even more alarming so do 20% of all children. This is a major health issue in New Zealand. The seminar will be an opportunity to ask everything you wanted to know about the welfare delivery system here in NZ.