This year will see the largest GP training cohort on record, but ACRRM says more places are needed to keep up with demand.
The tables have turned on general practice training; just a few short years after the RACGP failed to fill all its places, the 2026 GP registrar is on track to be the largest on record.
In an announcement on Friday morning, Health Minister Mark Butler confirmed that GP training would remain with the RACGP and ACRRM into the future, with a five-year contract totalling more than $1 billion.
Around 70% of that money – $751.3 million, to be exact – will go to the RACGP, while ACRRM will receive the remaining $331.7 million.
Both colleges deliver training through the Australian GP Training program; while ACRRM previously administered some training through the Rural Generalist Training Scheme, this has now been folded into the broader AGPT program.
According to Mr Butler, there will be more than 2100 registrars commencing GP training this year.
The RACGP has officially announced that it has filled every available place across its program for this year, while ACRRM will be oversubscribed for the third year running.
While all of ACRRM’s registrars will be training in rural and remote settings as rural generalists, around 290 doctors in the RACGP program – 16% of the overall intake – have signed on to the rural generalist track.
ACRRM president Dr Rod Martin called the $1 billion training contract “a good, stable platform”, but warned that it would not fund any additional places to what has already been announced.
When the colleges are oversubscribed, as ACRRM has been, they can ask government permission to reallocate leftover money from existing programs to fund the extra places.
It means that the additional training places are somewhat ad hoc.
“We’ll still have the challenge of over subscription and needing to seek funding for those additional places with that ongoing additional interest,” Dr Martin told The Medical Republic.
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“But it is a good solid, basis and it’s a good starting point … the communities need [more doctors] and we have more and more people wanting to try and fill that need.”
Technically, the RACGP’s share of the $1 billion training grant is the largest and longest training agreement ever awarded to a medical college in Australia.
RACGP president Dr Michael Wright welcomed the funding.
“This is a five-year extension to the AGPT training program contract, and it really is going to give GP registrars confidence,” he told TMR.
“It shows that the government has confidence in the college to provide the high-quality training that GP registrars need.”
