General Practice Less Pessimistic But Recruitment Problem Persists – Survey

General practices are struggling to recruit enough doctors and nine out of 10 are increasing patient fees to stay afloat, according to a survey by the General Practice Owners Association (GenPro).

However the survey also suggests the veil of gloom over general practice has partially lifted, with fewer making a loss and more maintaining their service levels than in previous years.
“General practice is out of intensive care but is still in the recovery room,” says Dr Angus Chambers, chair of GenPro.

The GenPro Annual Pulse Survey 2025 was carried out in August and had 226 respondents, about a quarter of all general practices in New Zealand.

Chambers said the results show general practice is feeling slightly better after some horrendous years when many closed down, merged or reduced services to their patients.
“We are finally seeing some improvement,” Chambers says.

“The key reason is that the government has acknowledged the crisis in general practice – it allocated more funding in Budget 2025 and improved the way that funding is allocated.” 
The survey showed that:

• One out of five general practices made a loss last year, fewer than in previous years;
• One out of four general practices said their financial position had worsened, a significant improvement from the four out of five figure of two years ago;
• Two out of three practices were charging patients for what used to be free, similar to previous years;
• Four out of five general practices were taking new patients, a slight improvement.

“While the results are more positive than in previous years, we expected to see an improvement from what had been a desperate situation.”

Some 85 percent of respondents had recently increased, or were about to increase, their fees, and 23 percent were in a worse financial position than a year ago.

“With almost a quarter of practices in a worse financial position, there is a risk of communities losing their general practices unless more is done to improve their financial viability.

“While there were improving trends in the survey, the situation for patients is still sub-optimal. More than half of practices have doctor vacancies, and nearly one in four are still looking for nurses.”

“One bright spot is that only 29 percent of general practices had reduced their services, a sharp reduction from 54 percent two years ago. This shows the situation for general practice is stabilising, and it would improve even further if we could do better at recruiting medical professionals,” Chambers said.

While the results were encouraging, much more improvement was needed.

“We appreciate that government has increased its support of primary healthcare and is overhauling the current out-of-date funding model, but neither step has increased the supply of medical professionals into primary healthcare, meaning family doctors remain overworked and too many patients still cannot easily access a GP.”

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