Specialist training in general practice: Developments in social-legislation-based support - a data-driven introduction.

Aims: Comprehensive provision of general healthcare (i.e. primary care) within the populace is contingent on there being enough general practitioners (GPs) in proximity to patients. It is no longer the case that vacated allocated positions for primary-care physicians are being filled in all regions. Support for specialist training in general medical practice is one of the measures intended to ensure provision of GP services. This analytical project aims to make a data-driven contribution to gauging the impact of such support on primary care in Germany, while also delivering pointers for further research.

Methods: On the basis of routinely collected data, the history of such support was examined in detail for all practice-based, statutory health insurance (SHI)-accredited GPs during the period 2016-2022. In the analysis, GPs were broken down by whether they took up full-time or part-time roles, self-employed or salaried roles, and roles in a practice or in an ambulatory healthcare centre (MVZ).

Results: During the period under review, the proportion of those who have both recently commenced work as SHI-accredited GPs and had previously used support for their specialist training, increased from 57% to 81%. The total number of new GPs (headcount) rose from 1,590 to 1,955. Results indicate that those who had availed themselves of this support take up self-employed and full-time roles more often than those who had not.

Conclusions: Both take-up of support for specialist training, and the number of new GPs, increased markedly during the period under review. The data does not indicate any causal links. However, these results could form a jumping-off point for further research (in general) into support for specialist training, and (in particular) into how this may impact these individuals' subsequent work roles.