There will be an additional 100 medical students throughout Australia next year thanks to a commitment from the federal government to support additional university places to “grow the pipeline of future GPs”.
Minister for Health and Ageing Mark Butler made the joint announcement alongside the Education Minister Jason Clare and said the focus of the places would be on primary care training.
“More training places will deliver more doctors to care for Australians in every corner of the country,” Mr Butler said.
The additional Commonwealth supported places will be spread across 10 universities including Notre Dame University, which has a medical school within its Fremantle campus.
This year has seen the largest cohort of future GPs begin training, with 1,800 student doctors having commenced government-funded training to become a GP in 2025.
A further commitment to add another 50 training places in 2028 was made as part of the Building the GP Workforce – Primary Care CSPs initiative.
The Federal Government has also committed greater funding to the Australian General Practice Training (AGPT) Program to ensure that 2000 new specialist GPs are trained by 2028
These measures follow the release of results of a census of the GP workforce by the RACGP which warns of a potential shortfall of GPs if more is not done to secure the future of the workforce.
The inaugural National GP Workforce Insights Report analysed information from across the entire GP training system to provide data on the number of GPs working in Australia, where they are working and at what level.
RACGP President Dr Michael Wright said this would help to understand where the GP national workforce is heading, and where there are shortfalls.
It showed that WA continued to lag behind much of the rest of the country in terms of GP numbers.
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While there were 113.7 full time equivalent (FTE) GPs per 100,000 people across the country, in WA there were just 98.9 FTE GPs to the same number of people.
The report also confirmed what has been a talking point for a number of year; that a large share of the GP workforce is approaching retirement years, with more than four in 10 GPs now aged over 55
This mirrors figures from the WA Health Workforce Strategy 2024, which showed a similar situation playing out in the state.
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Additionally, the RACGP report showed that many communities outside of major cities rely on GPs in training.
Registrars represented three times the share of the general practice workforce in regional, rural, and remote areas (16%) as they do in metropolitan areas (5%).
More than 50% of the GP workforce is made up of overseas trained doctors, with the highest numbers of doctors from outside Australia coming from India and the United Kingdom.
Dr Wright said: “The report gives policymakers and the RACGP insight into what is needed to secure Australia’s future GP workforce, and the evidence to shape workforce policy, including funding and training decisions – not just for now, but over the next decade and beyond.”
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