SIG on Ageing and Health Annual Report

Professor Dimity Pond (Australia), Convenor, SIG on Ageing and Health writes:

The WONCA Special Interest Group on Ageing and Health has been reconvened in this 12 months. It currently has 17 members from a number of countries including Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Hong Kong China, the Netherlands, the UK, the USA, and Zambia

The group has been busy producing a consensus statement about the importance of strengthening family medicine in the face of the increasing numbers of elderly people throughout the countries of the world. The group recognises however, that this is not possible in every country, and that a range of workforce responses to aged care – largely around primary care - may need to be considered.
While emphasising that policy responses should emphasise primary care, the group has also raised other issues for policy consideration, including the need for standards in aged care and the integration of health and social care.

The group is also compiling resources around aged care best practice and also around teaching in aged care for family doctors.

The group is considering collaborations both within and beyond WONCA to pursue matters of interest to family medicine in the area of aged care.

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About Dimity Pond

Dimity Pond is Professor of General Practice, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Australia. She is also a GP in clinical practice. She conducts research in the areas of mental health and particularly dementia, focusing mainly on GP identification and management. Projects have included GP guidelines for management of dementia (currently being revised), a randomised controlled trial of GP education in dementia identification, a nurse practitioner project, and several studies exploring the role of the GP practice nurse in dementia identification and management. She has had over $20 million in research funds, and has published over 150 papers in peer reviewed journals.