Name Shoalhaven Division of General Practice Division Number 220 Classification Rural Number of Member GPs 90 State New South Wales Year Established 1994 Number of Member Practices 37 Postcodes Covered 2535, 2538, 2539, 2540, 2541 Population 87,472 (2001 Census) Area Covered Berry, Nowra & surrounding beach areas, Milton and Ulladulla CEO Ms Eve Craddock Chair Dr Lyndal Parker-Newlyn Physical Address: Unit 5/Level 1, 59 Junction Street NOWRA NSW 2541 Australia Postal Address: PO Box 516 NOWRA NSW 2541 Australia Email: eve@sdgp.org.au Phone: 02 4423 6233 Fax: 02 4423 6451 Website: http://www.sdgp.org.au

The Division office is situated in the eastern end of the main street, opposite the local taxi rank.

Major Achievements:

• Involvement with the Consumers group (the Division was not involved before)
• Accreditation -last year there were only three practices accredited out of 36 and now because of the divisional push and support there remain only four practices
• Divisions which are not accredited or have made an application for accrediation.
• The Division's involvement on committees has gone from zero in 1998 to the following: Breast Cancer Task Force- Illawarra Area Health Service(IAHS), Women's Health Advisory Committee (IAHS), Oncology Task Force (IAHS), Clinical
• Advisory Committee (IAHS), TACT Committee (IAHS), HITH Committee Nowra Hospital, Rural Chapter, Consumer Health committee, Mission Gambling Task Force - Nowra Mental Health Committee, Dementia Advisory Committee, Veteran Affairs (Medical Advisory Representative) Nowra, Various Internal Hospital
• Committees.
• The Division have become the community advisory service for all medical issues and has people contacting them daily.
• GPs now see the Division as the service they need for advice on how to access medical information. In fact the Division have become the backbone of most practices and support service for general practitioners.
• The Division has gained funding for a major  "Childhood Obesity" Programme due to be rolled out early in 2005.
• The Division schools programme has been instrumental in decreasing the amount of teenage pregnancies in local areas.
• The MAHS programme sees podiatrists and dieticians caring for Diabetic patients in the GP surgeries. This programme has assisted patients living in the more remote areas of the coast in accessing allied health services which were been unavailable in the past.
• After two years working with the Illawarra Division, University of Wollongong the announcement that our "Medical School" will proceed commencing in 2007. This has been a major achievement for all those involved and hopefully will result in an increase in rural general practitioners by 2011.

Challenges for the future:

• Develop a successful working relationship with the new Area Health Service for the provision of services to the rural sector.
• Support the retention of rural GPs in the area.
• Continue to work with the University of Wollongong to provide adequate numbers of high quality, highly skilled health professional in rural & remote areas.
• Continuing to work with all health professionals to improve the health of the community at large.

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