PATIENT medical records from Mildura Tristar clinic will be held by the Family Doctor group and are available for patient access at their new GPs, says the administrator of Tristar Medical Group.

Matthew Caddy, a partner at McGrathNichol who has overseen the administration of Tristar’s parent company, Khaled El-Sheikh Pty Ltd, said while the Mildura doctors had not transferred as part of the sale of 10 Tristar clinics to Family Doctor, the responsibility to maintain local patient records had transferred.

Mr Caddy said Family Doctor would maintain patients’ records electronically and former Tristar patients could request them by visiting Family Doctor or another GP.

“The business of Tristar has been transferred to Family Doctor,” Mr Caddy said. “Patients can either visit Family Doctor, or if they see an alternate doctor, that doctor can request the patient record.”

Mr Caddy said the Tristar office would continue to have a staff member on duty to receive calls, but this service would cease at the end of this week.

The Mildura-based Tristar group went into administration after accruing debts of about $23 million. Twelve clinics were due to be sold to Family Doctor, which operates 55 clinics nationwide, but doctors at the Mildura clinic declined to sign consultancy agreements to transfer as part of the sale.

A spokesperson for the Fair Work Ombudsman said it was “investigating Tristar Medical Group in Mildura” but said as the matter was ongoing, it was not appropriate to comment further.

“We have previously confirmed separate inquiries into Tristar Medical Group in 2019, which concluded without the need for formal enforcement action,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said workers had been “encouraged to come forward to raise concerns about their pay and entitlements”.

Former Tristar patients may soon have a hotline to ring for updates and receive some clinical advice, according to Murray Primary Health Network chief executive Matt Jones.

Mr Jones said a meeting with a range of health services last week had resulted in a handful of solutions that he hoped would assist about 15,000 people who had received some or all of their primary care at Tristar.

“We are working now … on a hotline for people to be able to ring in order to get information, and also some triaging of clinical issues for anyone that is having trouble getting into a GP practice,” Mr Jones said.

“We’re hoping we’re hoping that hotline will start next week.”

Among other solutions considered, Mr Jones said he would look into emergency pop-up primary care clinics that could bring in more GPs on a fly-in, fly-out basis.

Mr Jones said MPHN was also working with practices that had shown interest in receiving GPs from the Mildura Tristar clinic who had expressed a willingness to stay in the region.

“We’re certainly working with Silverline (Health Care) on the prospect of taking a number of those GPs and that will also enable some Tristar patients to be able to be transferred or come into their services,” he said.

Silverline director Brett McKinnon said the clinic was interested in bringing three doctors from Tristar to add a potential “100-plus appointments per day” if the “stars align”.

“If primary care opportunities are maximised, then the rest of the system benefits as we need to protect and preserve our acute- care sector as well,” Mr McKinnon sad.

He said while Silverline Health Care could not yet take on new patients, negotiations were “well progressed to onboard new GPs in a timely fashion as soon as funding commitments are shored up”.

Mallee MP Anne Webster said the region could not afford to lose more GPs and said last week’s meeting with MPHN had raised several “semi-solutions” which merited the attention of Health Minister Mark Butler.

This included allowing pharmacists to dispense routine medications and removing out-of-pocket telehealth expenses.

“We were already burdened in the primary sector,” Dr Webster said. “Now we are in a crisis. And we are being provided with very little help.”