Wagga MP Joe McGirr's call to establish the department comes as a parliamentary inquiry into health outcomes and access in rural, regional and remote areas is due to report back in April.

"We have a rural health minister and I think we need to have a department to support her," Dr McGirr said.

"There has been a lot done in the last 20 years to improve rural, regional and remote health, but it has not been enough for many communities."

The proposal has been supported by Ayman Shenouda, from Glenrock Country Practice, who said a specific department would be "fantastic".

"We know that the outcomes for patients in rural communities are not as good as the outcomes of patients in urban communities," Dr Shenouda said.

"The agenda that rural communities are facing are different than that of urban communities and I think you cannot bundle the two together."

The GP said the community also needed to be involved.

Dr McGirr said the new department should focus on staffing and provide advocacy, such as checking government decisions for their impact on rural, remote and regional areas.

The MP said an example was the decision to centralise coronial autopsies at a facility in Newcastle, which caused suffering and distress to rural people because of subsequent delays.

Dr McGirr said the department could also work closely with the Commonwealth to train general practitioners.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Dr Shenouda welcomed such collaboration.

"General practice is under the control of the Commonwealth government and hospitals are controlled by state government," he said.

"We have this problem where it's often state versus Commonwealth.

"We need to be talking among both governments because we need collaborative care between hospital and community care.

"When doctors are in training and they transition from community care to hospital care then they've got a good pipeline to transition them without any issue."

Dr Shenouda said employment was already a struggle.

Wagga-based Nationals MLC Wes Fang said while he may yet support Dr McGirr's call for a new rural entity, the proposal might be premature given the new regional health minister was only appointed in December.

"Duplication will increase costs, I'm not convinced it will increase patient outcomes," Mr Fang said.

"I think we need to make the patient outcomes the priority and if that is best done with the current department then I think that's, in the first instance, where we need to go."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: