Andrews government promises $30,000 incentive for trainee GPs

The $32 million program would fund one-off payments to "top up" the salary shortfall for first year GPs, with many medical graduates choosing more lucrative specialist training streams.

The funds would also provide $10,000 to cover the cost of first year exams, reducing the debt burden young doctors are faced with.

Deakin University rural health professor James Dunbar, of Warrnambool, said the announcement was welcome, regardless of the timing so close to an election.

"I think the key point is that it's needed, whether there's an election coming or not," Professor Dunbar said.

"Money will help fix the problem. It's not all that's needed to fix things, but it's a big part of it."

Professor Dunbar said the primary health network was facing enormous structural problems, with burnt out GPs leaving the sector and graduate numbers drying up as medical students shunned the field.

"This announcement needs to be seen against the background of the federal Health Minister Mark Butler saying GPs are the biggest issue to solve in the healthcare system," he said.

"Enrolments have dropped from being 50 per cent of graduates only a few years ago to just 15 per cent."

In making the announcement, Labor said even though primary healthcare was a federal responsibility "a decade of Liberal cuts" had forced the state government to step in.

Professor Dunbar said that was a fair assessment, and the problems in the sector were largely a result of "the federal Coalition slashing funding".

"Credit to Daniel Andrews for saying 'I'm going to start this ball rolling' and encouraging the feds to pick up on it."

Professor Dunbar said he didn't know whether the funding would change the trend away from general practice, but argued "at least they are trying". He said the next step would be for rural areas to get preferential entry for GP to give the regions extra help.

The state government also promised $19m for a 12-month trial helping pharmacists to treat minor illnesses like common skin conditions and urinary tract infections (UTIs), as well as administering certain vaccines and reissuing prescriptions for contraceptives.

Professor Dunbar said the announcement was "a good idea in theory", but it would have to be carefully supervised. "The problem is they've done a trial in Queensland with pharmacists looking after UTIs which had terrible results. So the question is, are pharmacists well enough trained to actually do the job?"

He said the nurses working in general practice were still "really underused" and had a "huge capacity to do those kinds of jobs" and were already trained to offer such services, compared with pharmacists who required extra training.