The Illawarra Division of General Practice is part of a larger network of Divisions across Australia. Divisions of General Practice are local networks of general practitioners that are funded by the Australian federal government. There are 111 Divisions of General Practice in Australia and each state has a coordinating body (e.g., Victoria Division of General Practice) which falls under the national Australian Division of General Practice.

The role of the Divisions is to, "improve the quality and efficiency of general practice services" (Australian Commonwealth Department of Health & Aged Care, 1998, p. 288). They do this by linking GPs at the local level with all levels of Government, local hospitals, community based service providers, consumers, other medical bodies and universities (Jan, Dommers & Mooney, 2003). Divisions provide coordinating functions (e.g., information technology support, advertising the capacity of General Practice services), education and training (e.g., distribution of educational resources to support practices, specific training activities for Continuing Education).

In addition to basic infrastructure and administrative funding that go to Divisions to support these activities, there are special projects that are funded by the federal government usually through the Australian Division of General Practice. These special projects usually promote some aspect of improved general practice services (e.g., better detection of diabetes, youth access etc). The capacity of each Division to tender for such projects varies considerably and is often dependent on the size of the Division. The size and demographic characteristics of the Divisions across Australia vary widely for example in Queensland they range from less than 20 to nearly 800 GPs (Jan et al., 2003). The smaller Divisions lack the funding and other resources to allow them to undertake a number of special project activities (Jan et al, 2003). Even amongst larger Divisions the capacity for them to be able to successfully conduct evaluations and to provide high quality reports is also variable.

 For futher information visit the Australian General Practice Networkwebsite