Hunter doctors Dr Lee Fong and Dr Melissa Collogan say workforce shortages and funding cuts are preventing patients from accessing affordable health care as Federal Labor MPs promise policy changes

It comes as Hunter general practices say a shortage of doctors and loss of funding has forced them to cut their after hours services - a decision that means patients delay important care or clog up hospital emergency departments.

Kate Rudder, the practice manager of medical centres at Windale, Charlestown and Redhead, said the combination of the pandemic, a GP shortage, and a series of government cuts has led to a burnt out workforce expected to "do more with less".

"We now can't offer the level of after hours services that we could in the past," she said. "We had to make the very difficult decision to close our Charlestown practice on Sundays. We are now only open until 4pm on Saturday, and we have had to cut our night shifts down to a 6 o'clock close. We used to be open until 8pm."

Ms Rudder said as well as bulk billing cuts, they had lost "practice incentive payments" and "service incentive payments".

"Particularly with the bulk billing cut, we have had to move to more private billing which is impacting the community - particularly in Windale, because a lot of people just can't afford that. The slow chewing-away of the funding that has kept us alive is really affecting how we do things now, and ultimately it is the community that suffers."

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Dr Melissa Collogan, a GP at the Windale Medical Centre, said it was becoming harder for their community to see a doctor when needed because of the workforce shortage and inadequate government funding.

"People can wait up to three weeks for an appointment at this practice," she said. "It leads to unnecessary ED presentations and it puts a lot of pressure on us when we are already under a lot of pressure."

The Hunter and Central Coast Primary Health Network says about 40 per cent of the workforce supporting regional and rural areas were international medical graduates.

"With the changes made in 2019 to the Distribution Priority Area (DPA) classification system, 149 practices in our region lost their DPA status, representing approximately 38 per cent of practices in the region," it's Senate Inquiry submission said.

Dr Lee Fong, of the Hunter GP Association, said these changes - under the "Monash Medical Model rurality classification" - also reduced the bulk-billing incentive payment in the region.

"It continues to take about $7.5 million of primary care MBS funding out of our region per annum," he said.

Labor has vowed to restore the Hunter's DPA status in an effort to address the "chronic" GP workforce shortages in the region.

It follows a pledge to return $500,000 in funding cuts to the Hunter's GP Access After Hours service.

Shortland MP Pat Conroy says the closure of the Calvary Mater service on Christmas eve, and the reduced hours at other GP Access clinics since, were being felt "right now".

"They have cut the equivalent of two clinics," he said.

"Services are now operating on half the hours. Belmont recently had to close because of a staff shortage, and the waiting time at Belmont Hospital went from two hours to 5.5 hours overnight."

Mr Conroy said the Minister for Regional Health's claims the "blanket" policy would lure doctors away from areas that needed more doctors than the Hunter was an "insult and a slap in the face" to local GPs and patients who can wait up to a month for an appointment.

Minister Gillespie said it would "completely undermine" its effectiveness as a workforce distribution measure, and make it harder for the areas with the lowest access to GP services in the Hunter and other rural and remote areas to recruit and retain the doctors they need.

The former regional doctor said Kurri-Kurri/Cessnock, Singleton, Maitland and Morriset/Cooranbong had recently been granted DPA status under "exceptional circumstances" reviews. Minister Gillespie said areas such as Windale, in the Lake Macquarie catchment, were currently under review.

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