Speaking at the National Rural Health conference in Darwin, Assistant Minister for Health Fiona Nash announced an overhaul of the GP Rural Incentives Program (GPRIP) which meant from July, smaller rural communities would be able to more easily attract and retain GPs.

Under the old system introduced by the Labor Government in 2010, $50 million a year was being used to pay incentives for doctors to live in 14 large regional cities, including Townsville (population 175,000) and Cairns (population 145,000), Ms Nash said.

She said the old system created incentives for doctors to remain in well-serviced cities that had little trouble attracting doctors.

Following consultation with an expert panel and stakeholders, a new model known as the Modified Monash Model would be used to classify rural and regional towns.

Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong were considered MM1, meaning they were the easiest to find doctors for and did not attract the incentives the more difficult-to-fill locations did.

On that scale, Bathurst was considered MM3, while Wellington and Narromine were MM5, Nyngan and Warren were MM6 and locations such as Bourke fell in the MM7 category, the latter being a location that was among most difficult to fill.

The new system would redirect money to attract more doctors to smaller towns that had genuine difficulty attracting and retaining doctors, Minister Nash said.

“It makes more sense to use that money to attract doctors to where the greatest shortages are - small rural and remote communities, not big regional cities,” she said.

“This means bigger incentive payments will go to doctors who choose to work in the areas of greatest need.

“We’ve taken money which was being used to attract doctors to cities like Cairns and Townsville and we’re using it to get doctors to towns like Cowra and Cobram.

“For decades, Australia’s small rural towns have struggled to attract enough doctors. This change is one way we’re tackling that.”

The new GP rural incentive payment would not be available to doctors working in the 14 large regional cities with populations of more than 50,000.

The highest incentive paid to work in remote Australia would jump from $47,000 a year to $60,000 a year. 

The maximum incentive to work in a town of fewer than 5000 in regional Australia would increase from $18,000 to $23,000.

Other changes included that doctors would be able to take leave from a rural practice for up to five years with no loss of incentive status on their return.

Also, four existing programs had been streamlined into a single GPRIP retention payment, and doctors would need to stay in a rural or regional area longer - two years up from the current six months - before they received the incentive.

Doctors in remote areas would receive incentive payments after a year.

More information and the expert panel report were available at ruralhealthaustralia.gov.au