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Fast Facts: Counting the medical workforce in Australia

There are a number of ways to 'count' the Australian GP workforce. A headcount tells us the number of GPs currently practising in Australia, but gives no indication of their workload. This measure is not always considered to be the best one as it fails to account for the amount of time individual GPs are working.

The Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing uses a modified version of full-time equivalence (FTE) and full-time workload equivalence (FWE) to indicate the level of Medicare funded GP activity. FWE sets the average full-time GP workload at one. GPs billing at half the average GP rate are recorded at working 0.5 FWE, whereas GPs billing at double the average are recorded as 2.0 FWE. The modified FTE also sets the average at one, but includes a cap at one. Therefore GPs billing above the average full-time GP are also recorded as 1.0 FTE. (More detailed explanations are available at <www.phcris.org.au/fastfacts>).

The difference between GP FTE and FWE from 1995-96 to 2005-06 has remained relatively consistent. However, the observed increase in FTE and FWE count over the years may, at least in part, be an artefact of the decrease in average hours worked by GPs during this period.