The first of the websites for the Divisions of General Practice were published in 1995 (The Hunter Urban Division of General Practice and The Southern Division of General Practice). As other Divisions produced their websites it became apparent that there needed to be a means of access to these sites. At the time, Internet search engines were poorly developed and were slow to find new sites, and it was often impossible to find the URL for a new Division website.
On the 5th May 1996, at the instigation of the HUDGP and the SDGP, a meeting of interested Divisions was held at the Hornsby Kuringai DGP. At the meeting it was unanimously decided to create a website to represent the Australian Divisions. The Australian Divisions Website was then created and the webmasters of the HUDGP and the SDGP were given the task of establishing and running this site. That afternoon the Home Page for the Australian Divisions Website was created in Sydney by Drs Uri Scelwyn (SDGP) and John Goswell (HUDGP), and uploaded in Adelaide that night. The site continued to develop, mostly due to the work of Dr Uri Scelwyn in Adelaide, but with input and collaboration from Dr Goswell. Dr Scelwyn regrettably announced his decision not to continue his involvement in early 1999.
When the Australian Divisions of General practice was formed, the name Australian Divisions Website was changed to National Divisions of General Practice.
To date there has been considerable interest in the site, which has focussed primarily on communication amongst doctors across the country. Of particular value has been the Mailgroup, which has seen the participation of many hundreds of doctors (also practice staff and Division staff) from around Australia and indeed from around the world.
The aim of the National Divisions Website was to enhance communications amongst doctors and GP Divisons across Australia (and beyond), to build a community spirit amongst Australian doctors, and to reduce the isolation of individual practitioners .
As the ADGP took over most of these roles the this website became more focussed on the linking of individual GPs, particularly through the Nat-Div Mailgroup. This mailgroup has been particularly successful and whilst it is not the largest medical mailgroup in the world, it almost certainly holds the record for the longest continuously running mailgroup in the world.
In 2011 the members of the Nat-Div Mailgroup decided upon a name change to reflect the fact that the website and the mailgroup, no longer had any links with the Divisions of General Practice. The new name was to be OZeGP (pronounced Aussie GP) to reflect the fact that the group was mostly made up of Australian General Practitioners. Ironically, with the government shift from Divisions of General Practice to Medicare Locals, the Divisions will essentially become a thing of the past as well.
The Nat-Div/OZeGP mailgroup has run 13 annual conferences. The conference pages summarise each of these.
