Medical schools boosted by 25 places a year, more graduates to be trained in GP clinics

• Medical schools in Auckland and Dunedin will be funded to train 25 more doctors a year between them.
• 50 graduates a year will also be trained in primary care settings rather than hospitals.
• It comes after a series of changes announced yesterday to improve access to GPs.

Medical schools in Auckland and Dunedin will train 25 more doctors a year after a funding boost announced today.

Health Minister Simeon Brown also announced that 50 graduates a year would be trained within primary care in a bid to boost general practice numbers.

Brown said the latest changes aimed to reduce New Zealand’s relatively high dependence on foreign recruitment.

“We can’t just rely on sourcing our doctors from overseas – we must ensure a sustainable pipeline of New Zealand-trained doctors," he said in a statement.

The coalition Government previously lifted places by 25 in August. Along with an increase of 50 by the previous Labour-led Government in 2023, the two medical schools will be able to train a total of 639 doctors a year from 2026.

The increase of 25 places does not go as far as the two universities had wanted. Auckland and Otago universities commissioned a report from PwC last year which showed they had capacity to train up to 714 doctors a year by 2026, and 889 a year by 2027.

The National Party also wants to build a third medical school at Waikato University, which would increase medical school places by 120 a year.

But it has faced resistance from coalition partner Act over the proposal. Leader David Seymour questioned the costings in a draft business case for a Waikato medical school which was produced last year.

Brown told reporters at Parliament today that work was “well underway” on a business case for the new medical school.

“We campaigned on that at the last election and obviously we think that’s a great idea and are supportive of it but there’s a coalition agreement that there needs to be a business case and a cost-benefit analysis.”

Brown was asked why the Waikato medical school was still needed if placements could be ramped up at the existing schools. He said the Waikato school would have a point of difference by focusing on training doctors for rural regions.

Labour Party health spokeswoman Dr Ayesha Verrall said the additional 100 medical school places would be funded a year later than National promised in its election manifesto, describing it as a “broken promise”.

Verrall said the Government needed to provide some certainty about a third medical school as soon as possible because it took six years to train medical students and they were sorely needed.

“We have always been of the view that it is expensive to set up a new medical school and wonder why we would go about that in an inefficient and more risky way.”

The Government also announced today that it was increasing the number of trainee GPs from next year. Funding of $23.3 million over four years would allow 50 New Zealand trainees a year to train mostly with GP providers rather than in hospitals.

Asked why graduates would choose general practice over more highly-paid hospital roles, Brown said many students trained as doctors because they wanted to be GPs and serve their communities.

The primary care sector is plagued by shortages, which sector leaders partly blame on an outdated funding model. Brown said yesterday that work on GPs’ capitation funding model was ongoing.

The funding gap has contributed to a crisis in general practice which has led to long waits to see a GP, more clinics closing their books to new enrolments, and more patients turning up at emergency departments with preventable illnesses.

Brown also announced a series of changes yesterday targeted at improving access to general practice: a new 24/7 telehealth service; incentives for practices to hire nurse graduates; 100 more placements for internationally-trained doctors to work in primary care; and a $285m uplift in funding for practices which fulfil criteria such as opening their books to new patients or lift immunisation rates.

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