Health Minister Tony Ryall has today announced the government is investing an extra $3.8 million to further increase the number of GP and primary care doctor training places.

“The additional funding will mean up to 170 junior doctors will be accepted into the General Practice Education Programme (GPEP), run by the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners,” says Mr Ryall.

“This will be the biggest intake of government funded GPEP training places ever.

“With more health care being delivered closer to home, we need to continue to grow the number of GPs in New Zealand.

“In the past six years, this National-led Government has more than doubled the number of funded GPEP training places – from 74 places in 2008 to up to 170 this year.

“Thanks to the hard work of Health Workforce NZ, the College and the Medical Council of New Zealand, there has been a massive increase in the number of junior doctors expressing an interest in becoming a GP.

“There has been a record number of applications for this year’s training programme, which starts in December. When applications closed last month, the College received over 200 applications, compared to less than 120 at the same time last year,” says Mr Ryall.

The extra funding, announced today, brings the total investment from the government for GPEP training places to $22 million.