New organization of general practice in Norway from 1 January 2007

Abstract

In 2006 two days in May were “red-letter days” in the history of Norwegian general practice! On 4 May the Norwegian Association of General Practitioners (Aplf) held its annual general meeting where the delegates unanimously voted to dissolve the Professional Development Committee, which for many years had worked within the organization on the development of the general practice specialty. Aplf, hereafter called Allmennlegeforeningen (Af), was from 1 January 2007 to be entirely a union with main responsibility for the GPs’ union policy. Later that same day at the Norwegian College of General Practitioners’ annual general meeting it was also decided, by a vast majority, to dissolve the College with effect from 1 January 2007. The following day the new specialty organization, Norsk forening for allmennmedisin, the Norwegian College of General Practice, was founded. This organization is to be in charge of general practitioners’ professional development. We now in Norway have two organizations of general practice under the umbrella of the Norwegian Medical Association: Allmennlegeforeningen is solely a union, and Norsk forening for allmennmedisin is purely a specialty organization (College). The two organizations have more or less the same membership figure, approximately 4400. Much of last year was taken up with these organizational changes. We have established a joint website: http:www.legeforeningen.no/allmennmedisin. Joint news will be posted here and there will be links to the organizations’ individual websites. The new specialty organization has its own website: http://www.legeforeningen.no/nfa The new Board of the Norwegian College of General Practice (Nfa) has held some meetings and has drafted a policy statement [1]. The two most important issues for the Board, besides constructing the organization, have initially been the recruitment situation in Norwegian general practice and research in general practice.