General Practice Training Programme To Be Fully Funded Is A Win For The Future Of The General Practice Workforce

The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners welcomes the Minister of Health’s announcement today at GP25: Conference for General Practice of significant additional funding for registrars across the General Practice Education Programme (GPEP).

This announcement will go a long way to strengthen the training and grow the next generation of the specialist GP workforce, and includes:

• In 2025, training fees for doctors in their second, third, and post-third year of GPEP to encourage completion of their training.
• Fellowship assessment costs for around 200 GPEP trainees to enable them to complete their training and become Fellows.
• From 2026, full ongoing training and education costs for an estimated 400 GPEP year 2 and 3 trainees each year.

Currently, GP registrars only have their first year of GPEP funded with the second and third years having to be self-funded. This funding approach is different to all the other medical training programmes (in New Zealand and Australasian medical colleges) that are fully funded for their entirety.

College President Dr Samantha Murton says, "This funding will be a gamechanger for current and future trainees. This is a significant acknowledgement for the specialism of the general practice workforce and the vital role we play in healthcare being as important as those of our peers in secondary hospital settings.

"Not only will this funding offer the necessary financial support our GP registrars need throughout their training, but we are optimistic that the news will encourage medical graduates who have an interest in general practice but have been put off by the financial barriers to make the step to train as a specialist GP. To them, I say welcome and you won’t regret your decision.

The College has been a strong and vocal advocate for the current and future general practice workforce and is enthusiastic that the funding for primary care is heading in the right direction to ensure that it is sustainable.

College Chief Executive Toby Beaglehole says, "We are focused on building a sustainable workforce for the future, which starts with training and the equitability of our program costs to other specialist medical training.

"This funding sends a signal to the sector that the expertise of general practice is valued as a vital part of the health system. We are very grateful to the Minister for his recognition of the importance of primary care training to deliver healthier patients.

"This funding will also help reduce costs to the rural GP workforce who support communities that need more specialist GPs as soon as possible."

The Government has also announced that capitation funding reweighting will be introduced from 1 July 2026.

The College acknowledges that reweighting capitation funding will focus on the distribution of funding across general practice, so that practices with a higher needs population of enrolled patients will receive more funding to care for them.

Dr Murton says "We also welcome the changes to the capitation funding formula to include multimorbidity, rurality, and deprivation as factors. It is key, as the Minister has mentioned in his speech today, that these factors are regularly reviewed to meet the ongoing patient needs of the primary health care system."

The Ministry of Health with Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora will review capitation reweighting every five years, with the first review in 2028 so that it remains fit for purpose.

College Chief Executive, Toby Beaglehole says "I’d like to acknowledge Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora and the Minister for their support of our advocacy and their willingness to work with the College to better fund the future of our primary care workforce in New Zealand. Today is a massive win for putting patients first, and as the Minister said a first step in delivering a sustainable primary care workforce for general practice and rural hospital medicine."

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