More than a third of the Bay of Plenty's GPs will reach retirement age in the coming decade.
Parts of the Bay of Plenty face a GP shortage as more than a third of family doctors reach retirement age over the next decade.
The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners says rural areas will be hit with a GP shortage over the next 10 years, with nearly half of rural GPs intending to retire over that time.
The College's 2015 Workforce Survey of GPs showed 38 per cent of respondents in the Bay of Plenty area were aged over 55.
Bay of Plenty GP Dr Jo Scott-Jones said the growing and ageing population as well as worsening poverty compounded the issue.
Part of the solution was having practices reorganise themselves to be able to see more patients.
"The thing that's going to make the biggest difference is the virtual health space," he said.
The latest survey he'd seen showed 40 per cent of practices nationwide were looking for a full-time equivalent doctor.
In the very short term more overseas doctors were needed to fill urgent gaps, said Dr Scott-Jones.
"We also need to fairly rapidly look at the way that we do things so that we can actually change the way the team works and the way that patients interact with their doctors so that they can see more patients in the day."
He said the rural parts of the Bay of Plenty had a significant problem with attracting and retaining GPs. Tauranga and Rotorua had less of a problem.
There's a missing generation of GPs in the 35-50 age bracket and GPs are not being replaced at the same rate as GPs intend to retire over the next 10 years.
Dr Scott-Jones said being a GP was a fantastic job and one of the most satisfying professional roles someone could have. Practices were keen to support young people in their careers.
Bay of Plenty District Health Board primary care portfolio manager Andrea Baker said the Bay expected to attract younger GPs, as others retired, due to its location, infrastructure, population size, good schooling and affordable housing.
People were also increasingly receiving health care in a range of different ways including telehealth where technology is used to deliver health or medical care from a distance, and a strong nurse-based model of care.
Future-proofing measures around health care included DHB-funded rural premiums to promote rural practice sustainability for eligible practices.
Dr Grahame Jelley, chairman of the College's rural chapter, said the percentage of rural GPs intending to retire within the next 10 years had increased nationwide to 48 per cent in 2016.
College chief executive Helen Morgan-Banda said the college took on 182 new trainee GP registrars through its General Practice Education Programme last year. They would qualify in two to three years' time.
It also had 180 complete their training and achieve fellowship of the college while working as GPs.
This year it hoped to be able to confirm even more trainee GPs into its education programme.
"However, to keep increasing the number of GP trainees we need our funding to increase. We also need to find ways to train more GPs through new training models," she said.
"The college has a priority to build and maintain the GP workforce in New Zealand, however the length of time to train a GP is a minimum 11 years so the training pipeline is quite long."
New Zealand didn't have enough GPs because fewer were trained in the early 1990s, said Ms Morgan-Banda.
"There's a missing generation of GPs in the 35-50 age bracket and GPs are not being replaced at the same rate as GPs intend to retire over the next 10 years," she said.
The college was actively working to increase numbers of training GPs, but there was a continuing need for International Medical Graduates to fill the gap in the workforce.
Many of those graduates came to New Zealand 10 to 30 years ago and had been working in the same practice for many years.
Nearly 56 per cent of doctors in rural areas and more than 39 per cent in main urban areas were international medical graduates, said Ms Morgan-Banda.
The College's survey showed 42 per cent of Bay of Plenty GPs who responded were international medical graduates.
Tauranga GPs coping with population growth
Fourteen of the Western Bay's 25 general practices are taking on new patients, according to the Western Bay of Plenty Primary Health Organisation.
The PHO has a list of 25 practices on its website and of those, 14 were listed as taking on new patients.
Chief executive Roger Taylor said sometimes a patient might find the practice closest to home was not accepting new patients, but the majority of local practices were accepting enrolments.
He said another practice was opening in the Western Bay this year, but would not say where.
"Existing practices are opening second or third sites to accommodate growth."
Mr Taylor said the GP-to-patient ratio in the Western Bay was one GP per 1300 patients, which was a much better ratio than other centres around the country. The national guidelines were for a 1-1600 ratio, he said.
Bethlehem Medical Centre practice manager Trevor Deane said their books were closed as practices had a finite capacity.
He said nationally, the big issue was with recruiting and retaining GPs in rural centres.
Chadwick Healthcare operations manager Jude Walmsley said a new doctor had been hired before Christmas who was taking on patients and the practice was fielding calls all the time from people wanting to sign up.
Robynne Klatt, practice manager of Papamoa Beach Family Practice, said they were enrolling flat out and had "ample doctors".