GP training numbers up but politicians told more is needed

General practice training numbers are enjoying a much-needed boost in 2024, as new incentives attract registrars to remote towns which have previously gone without.
 
Already this year, 114 incentivised training placements have been successfully filled across Australia, as the RACGP works to address the critical maldistribution of GPs currently impacting patients.
 
Additionally, 91% of new GP training places were filled in 2024, compared to 85% in 2023, with rural places increasing by 11%.
 
The news comes on the second day of the GPs @ Parliament campaign, which is focusing the day’s advocacy efforts on GP training and the urgent need to fix the profession’s current workforce shortages.
 
Twenty GPs from across Australia are currently in Canberra for the three-day campaign, which includes a jam-packed schedule of meetings with the nation’s leaders, all aimed at promoting a systemic health overhaul.
 
The demands for change come after the RACGP recently evaluated the 829 GP catchments in Australia, ultimately identifying 121 where the college had accredited training sites and supervisors but had not been able to place a registrar the year before.
 
Within those recognised catchments, 186 training practices offering at least one training place were detected, with registrars then offered incentives of between $5000 and $45,000 to take up a position.
 
The program has now been widely hailed a success, with the Flexible Funds Policy seeing new GPs training in every corner of Australia, from Katherine, to Moonta, Kununurra, Charleville, Mallacoota, and Wynyard.
 
Many of these regional or remote locations had not been able to attract a general practice registrar for several years prior, such as in Coonabarabran, which had not had an RACGP registrar placement since 2016.
 
A larger selection of incentivised offerings is now being extended to registrars for the next intake of placements.
 
RACGP GPs in Training Chair Dr Rebecca Loveridge is in Federal Parliament as part of the GP delegation and welcomed the incentives, but she said other barriers are still preventing doctors from specialising in general practice.
 
‘We know that the earliest you can enter community general practice training is after two years in the hospital, and at that time as a base, you’re probably earning approximately $125,000, but your base rate across the first year of general practice averages to $95,000,’ she told newsGP.
 
‘That’s a huge ask for potential registrars to make, that financial sacrifice to pursue general practice training.
 
‘Then, on top of that, they also lose access to the parental leave and study leave entitlements that you’ve had for your two years in the hospital, so there’s this barrier that I think is quite easy to solve.’
 
Those changes to parental and study leave form one key part of the RACGP’s pre-Budget submission 2024–25, which made a number of funding recommendations aimed at creating a healthier Australia.
 
It is also advocating for funding to subsidise training for 1100 international and local doctors to become specialist GPs in regional and rural Australia.
 
Dr Loveridge believes the profession will see an influx of new GPs in training if these solutions are funded in the upcoming May Budget.
 
‘In the grand scheme of the Federal Budget, it’s not overly groundbreaking considering it’s the number one barrier for people thinking about general practice training,’ she said.
 
‘The main thing I find frustrating is that we’re losing people to hospital specialties not because it’s where they want to be, but because their entitlements are so much better.
 
‘That is scary for Australia and for the health of the nation, because everybody needs a GP.’
 
The call is one of three key advocacy items the coalition of GPs is bringing to Canberra this week, as well as greater investment into general practice care to reduce pressure on hospitals, and funding to establish a national practice-based research network.
 
RACGP President Dr Nicole Higgins is also in Canberra and said funding must be allocated to get a GP in every community in Australia.
 
‘GPs are also experts at stretching limited health resources, while ensuring patients get the care they need,’ she said.
 
‘Being a GP is one of the most rewarding jobs, but the workforce has been hamstrung by decades of underfunding. This investment will help remove the barriers to general practice training.’
 
The GPs @ Parliament event has included several meetings with Ministers, Senators, and parliamentarians, attending Question Time, and a briefing with the House Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport.
 
Dr Loveridge said so far, the GP delegation’s meetings with decisionmakers have felt positive, with many commenting that a boost to the workforce is ‘sensible and logical’.
 
‘There hasn’t been any real pushback because this is a good idea, but obviously, there are lots of competing priorities and so I’m very much looking forward to the May Budget and the rest of my meetings while we’re here,’ she said.
 
‘GPs are on this second-rate set of entitlements and all we’re asking for is to be on a similar playing field, we’re not asking for anything more.’
 
The GP delegation will remain in Canberra until Wednesday.
 
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