A plan for district health boards to assume responsibility for hiring first-year GP registrars has failed, the New Zealand Medical Association says.
Designed as part of a raft of changes pushed by Health Workforce New Zealand (HWNZ) to improve GP training, putting registrars on a salary instead of a stipend would give parity with registrars in other specialties.
The association's deputy chairman, Dr Mark Peterson, said GP registrars lacked access to basic employment benefits, and received the stipend for just 40 weeks of the year.
Carrying a "negative connotation", the stipend seemed somewhat "flakey" to those entering training.
Dr Peterson said DHBs this month ruled out taking on the employment responsibility, presumably baulking at possible extra cost.
The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners was the most likely body to be awarded the new role, he said.
"I think there is just a slight concern about the separation of the role of the college as being the employer as well as the arbitrator of standards.
"In the ideal world we would like to see some separation ..."
Improving GP training and conditions could help alleviate the desperate shortage of GPs in rural areas, which included many places in Otago and Southland, he said.
GP specialisation took three years; after the first year trainees were expected to find employment with a practice.
University of Otago health sciences pro-vice-chancellor Prof Peter Crampton said he hoped first-year GP registrars were employed, because at present they were the "poor cousin" of other trainees.
"The general practice training programme is extremely important for New Zealand," he said.
Health Workforce New Zealand director Brenda Wraight cautioned it was too soon to say what would happen, with a decision due in August in time for the new system to start next year.
It would be premature to comment while the process with interested parties was under way, she said.
This week, New Zealand Doctor magazine reported HWNZ executive chairman Des Gorman saying complex problems with the DHB employment model could not be resolved. He declined to comment further.
