The Australian health system added one new doctor every hour last year, on average, with more doctors joining in the last two years than at any time in the past decade.
An additional 17,846 new medical practitioners registered to practise in the last two financial years.
The 2022-23 cohort of 8,356 new doctors was the largest influx of new doctors in more than a decade.
That record was beaten in 2023-24, when 9,490 new doctors registered to practise.
This means more doctors are registering to practise in Australia, more junior doctors are training to become GPs, and more medical graduates are aspiring to become GPs since the Albanese Government’s record investments to strengthen Medicare.
The boom in new doctors is driven by record numbers of internationally qualified doctors moving to Australia to join our health system.
5,431 doctors from overseas registered to practise in Australia in the past financial year, 80% more than the 2,991 doctors who registered in 2018/19, the last year before COVID.
To provide services under Medicare, these internationally qualified doctors must spend their first 10 years working in a rural or regional area.
The Albanese Government has invested $90 million and is working with all state and territory governments to ensure overseas medical practitioners are not deterred from working in Australia by slow application processes and unnecessary red tape, as recommended by the independent Kruk Review given to ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Cabinet last year.
These changes have already reduced the time that internationally qualified doctors wait for their applications to considered, assessed and finalised: from over 100 days in 2021-22 to less than 70 days in 2023-24.
The sharp growth in the number of doctors joining the health system is one of several positive indicators of a turnaround in sentiment among Australia’s doctors.
In 2024, close to one in five medical graduates aspired to a career as a GP or rural GP, with 17.5 per cent of graduates nominating general practice or rural generalism as their preferred specialty in the annual Medical Deans survey.
In addition, the number of junior doctors choosing to go into general practice grows each year.
In 2024, more than 1,600 doctors accepted a place on a government-funded training program to become a GP or rural GP – a 13 per cent increase on the year before.
In 2025, more than 1,750 offers are expected to be made to junior doctors to begin government-funded GP training, leading to an intake that could be up to 10 per cent larger than 2024.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners now expects to fill every one of the placements it has available, for the first time in years. The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine is also expected to fill its rural GP training placements, even after an increase to its allocated placements this year.
Australian GP training is delivered jointly by the two GP Colleges and is fully funded by the Australian Government.
Quotes attributable to Minister Butler:
“We know the difficulty that too many Australians face getting in to see a doctor and we are doing everything we can to attract, train and retain more doctors.
“This is a big vote of confidence from doctors, and it will make it easier for Australians to see a doctor when they need one. It shows that our reforms to strengthen Medicare are working, after a decade of Coalition cuts and neglect.
“More doctors are joining the health system, more doctors are training to become GPs, and more medical graduates are aspiring to become GPs since the Albanese Government was elected.”
