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Learn who is on the frontline of primary care in remote and rural Queensland. The medical practitioner portion of this information was previously published under our ‘Minimum Dataset Report’.
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At a glance
HWQ maintains a database of healthcare professionals working in a primary care context (private practice, small hospitals, non-government and not-for-profit organisations, Royal Flying Doctors Service and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services) in remote, rural and regional Queensland.
HWQ regularly tracks the medical practitioner workforce (primary practice location only, not including locum work for less than 3 months) on the census date of 30 November. Our most recent data, 30 November 2025, reveals the medical workforce was concentrated in less remote areas (over half in MM2), but remoteness still strongly shapes what clinicians do, how long they stay, and how the system recruits. In MM2 and MM3, practitioners spent the vast majority of their time in routine GP clinical work, while in MM7, hospital work rises sharply and teaching/supervision increases. Working hours are drifting down over time for all areas except MM6, which has instead spiked sharply in the last year.
Despite these workload changes, mean age remains strikingly stable at about 49–50 years from 2018 to 2025, suggesting new entrants are broadly replacing exits rather than substantially altering the age profile. Sex balance is moving toward parity, but males remain slightly more represented in more remote categories (around 54–55% in MM5–MM7). Retention pressures are most visible in intentions. In fact, nearly a third plan to leave within 3 years (30.5%), rising to 36.6% in MM6. Turnover data shows gains overall, but churn is high, with the highest departure rates in MM3 and MM4.
Meanwhile, data from the 2025 National Health Workforce Dataset reveals information about our nursing, allied health and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary care workforce. General practice nursing is strongly RN-led, with rising numbers in Queensland Health facilities in smaller communities, while Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health worker and practitioner growth is being driven mainly by the most remote areas. Across allied health, service delivery in MM2–7 relies heavily on private practice, particularly for optometry, dental care and podiatry.
Knowing who works where helps us advocate and support services across remote, rural and regional Queensland.
Overall workforce profile
Table description: Queensland demographics - workforce profile
Medical workforce profile
By Sex
Table description: Proportion of medical practitioners by sex and MM classification
Queensland’s medical practitioner split is almost down the middle by male and female. Females now make up 49% and males 51% across a total of 2,969 practitioners. This has risen steadily over time, from 43% in 2018 to 49% in 2025. After hovering around the mid‑40s in 2018–2021, the increase becomes more consistent from 2022 onward, reaching almost one in two practitioners by 2025.
The story changes with remoteness. In the larger regional centres, females make up a slim majority while males sit just below half.
Move further out, and males become the larger share in every category from MM3 to MM7. The gap is most noticeable in MM5 and MM6, where males account for 55.3% and 54.6% respectively, compared with females at 44.7% and 45.4%. Even in the most remote group (MM7), the pattern holds with males at 53.6% and females 46.5% showing that as remoteness increases, the workforce becomes modestly more male-dominated.
By age
Table description: Mean age of practitioners in MM2-MM7 2021 - 2025
Mean age is incredibly stable over the period, hovering around 49–50 years. After a small peak in 2020 (50.40), it edges down and then holds steady at about 49.0 from 2023–2025), suggesting there’s been no major ageing (or ‘youthening') of the workforce in recent years.
This sort of trend is unusual. Many workforces show clearer ageing or a noticeable growth in younger staff over periods. This kind of consistency may mean the system is replacing like-with-like rather than changing the overall profile. In time this could have implications for succession planning and the workforce pipeline.
Country of basic qualification
Table description: Top 10 countries of basic qualification for internationally trained medical graduates (GPs) in Queensland MM2-MM7
Queensland’s internationally trained medical graduates are most commonly initially trained in India and the United Kingdom, with Pakistan and Iran also major contributors. The rest of the top 10 spans Sri Lanka, South Africa, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Nigeria, highlighting just how globally sourced Queensland’s medical workforce is.
The year‑by-year intake data shows that Iran has been the most consistent high-volume source overall, with a sharp rise in 2023–2024 (including a peak in 2024), while Pakistan and Sri Lanka also feature strongly across multiple years.
Remoteness
Table description: Percent of Queensland medical practitioners by PHN region and MM classification
Most regions have medical practitioners clustered in MM2, meaning they’re mainly based in larger regional towns (about half of all practitioners overall). Western Queensland is the outlier, with no practitioners in MM2 and most in MM6–MM7, showing the workforce there is concentrated in very remote areas.
Table description: Percent of Queensland medical practitioners in a general practice setting by MM classification
Most medical practitioners are in general practice (2,461 of 2,969) and based in larger regional towns (1,528 are in MM2). In the most remote areas (MM6–MM7), care relies much more on hospital services, Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs) and the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
But care is growing. Between 2023 and 2025, the number of practitioners working in remote areas increased for both service types. General Practice numbers rose by 11.8%, while Hospital and Health Services climbed by almost 21%. By 2025, hospital-based practitioners were more likely to be in the most remote areas (MM6–7: 50%) than GPs (28%), highlighting how essential hospital services become as remoteness increases.
Medical workforce patterns
Procedural skills
Table description: Percent of self-reported hours by task for Queensland MM2 and MM7 medical practitioners
In MM2, the workload is overwhelmingly clinic-based. Nearly 9 in 10 hours (88.9%) are spent on routine GP work, with hospital duties making up just 2.4%. By MM7, the job becomes far more mixed and routine GP work drops to 58.7%. Hospital work jumps to 20.4%, and teaching/supervision more than doubles to 9.3%, highlighting how remote practitioners spend much more of their week covering broader, multi-setting care.
Procedural skills among practitioners are also becoming more common over time, with those self-reporting that they are regularly undertaking procedures in surgery rising by 87.5% from 2022 to 2025 and anaesthesia jumping 176%. Obstetrics also increased 190%, while those reporting they are multi-skilled remained small but present over time, suggesting a gradual lift in broader procedural capability by 2025.
Hours worked
Table description: Mean self-reported total hours worked by Queensland practitioners per week by MM classification
Across all areas, average hours are trending down year‑on‑year, but the pattern varies by remoteness. MM3 shows the sharpest drop (43.03 to 37.65), MM2 eases slightly (40.88 to 39.17), and MM4 also declines (43.72 to 40.07), while the standout is MM6, where hours jump from 38.93 in 2024 to 45.93 in 2025.
Table description: Average self-reported total hours worked by Queensland medical practitioners in MM2-7 per week 2021-2025
In good news for practitioner wellbeing, mean weekly hours show a steady downward drift over time, falling from 43.8 hours in 2018 to 39.76 hours in 2025 (about 4 hours less per week on average).
After small ups and downs early on, the decline becomes more consistent from 2021 (42.3) through to 2025, suggesting practitioners are gradually working shorter weeks overall.
Table description: Queensland medical practitioners mean self-reported total hours per week by sex and MM classification
Men work more hours than women in every MM category, and that gap is biggest in very remote settings. For example, in MM6 men average 51.42 hours/week compared with 37.34 for women. This data may reflect a higher share of women working part-time or balancing caring responsibilities alongside clinical work. Remote settings also usually require longer on‑call rosters, travel time, and smaller teams.
Meanwhile, average hours are fairly similar from MM2–MM5 (about 38–40 hours/week), but they jump in MM6 to 45.93 hours/week (the highest), then drop back in MM7 to 38.89 hours/week. The standout is MM6, where practitioners appear to work noticeably longer weeks.
Ages remain largely the same across MM categories (overall age 49 years), and reported hours largely don’t track alongside age. The big differences in hours are more strongly tied to remoteness and gender.
Medical workforce stability
Employment period
Table description: Queensland medical practitioners mean years of employment at current practice by MM classification and sex
Mean tenure is longer for men than women across every remoteness category, and it drops as locations become more remote. Overall, women average 4.94 years and men 7.40 years, with the shortest tenure in MM7 (3.36 years for women, 4.26 for men and 3.84 years overall) compared with around 6–7 years in MM2–MM5.
Intention to leave
Table description: Percent of Queensland Medical Practitioners self-reported intent to remain in current location for less than 3 years by MM classification
Across the dataset, intentions to stay look shaky in the short term. Just under a third of practitioners (30.5%) say they expect to leave within 3 years. Those reporting an ‘early exit’ is highest in MM6, where 14.6% plan to leave in under a year and 36.6% expect to be gone within 3 years. These numbers are well above MM2 (31.25%) and MM7 (23.92%).
Overall, turnover is running hot across remoteness categories but entries (571) are outpacing exits (469) overall. Departure rates are highest in MM3 (31%) and MM4 (28%), while MM6 has the lowest (15%) even as it also posts the lowest arrival rate (13.3%). New arrivals in MM2–MM3 are predominantly international-trained, but the most remote areas (MM6–MM7) skew more Australian-trained, pointing to different recruitment pipelines as remoteness increases.
Nursing and midwifery
Table description: Queensland general practice nursing workforce by nurse type (MM2-7)
In MM2-7 general practice, the nursing workforce is led by Registered Nurse (RNs) by a wide margin (1,177 RNs make up the bulk of the 1,692 total). Enrolled Nurses (EN) are the clear second tier (416), while advanced/specialist roles like diabetes nurse educators (38) and nurse practitioners (37) are present but comparatively small. Overall, the pattern points to general practice relying most heavily on core RN capacity, supported by ENs, with limited numbers in specialised and advanced practice roles.1
When we look to Queensland Health facilities providing primary care services in smaller communities, nursing numbers are also rising fast. The total has climbed from 363 (2024) to 625 (2025) and 766 (2026). Growth is being driven overwhelmingly by RNs and a sharp lift in ENs.2
There are approximately 16 midwives operating across both settings.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health
Table description: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Health Practitioners by MM classification (2026 vs 2025)
Across Queensland, growth in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers/practitioners is being driven by the most remote communities. MM5–MM7 have all risen strongly, led by MM7 (+39). By contrast, MM4 records a sharp and dramatic fall since 2024 (−28), and the more accessible categories (MM2–MM3) are essentially flat. The overall uplift is promising but it is applied unevenly. 1,2
Allied health
Table description: Number of allied health professionals in Queensland MM2-7, including percentage working in private health
Most health services in regional and remote Queensland (MM2–7) are delivered through private practice, with especially high reliance among optometrists (97%), dental practitioners (77%) and podiatrists (77%).
Psychologists (68%), pharmacists (66%) and physiotherapists (62%) also predominantly work privately, while diagnostic radiographers are the exception, with less than half (49%) in private practice.
At a regional level, private practice dominates allied health and dental service delivery, particularly in Central Queensland, Wide Bay and the Sunshine Coast. In this region private provision accounts for 75% of psychologists, 83% of podiatrists and 99% of optometrists.
In Darling Downs and West Moreton, private reliance is similarly high, especially for dental practitioners (85%) and podiatrists (89%). In contrast, Northern and Western Queensland show lower and more variable private coverage, with sharp declines in Western Queensland for several professions, underlining the challenges of sustaining private services in smaller, more remote communities and the continuing importance of public and outreach models.1
Read about it: Data reveals clinicians are moving less for the first time
In past years, our ‘Practitioner movement across Modified Monash (MM)’ dataset has often shown a steady flow of clinicians changing location categories. This year, the pattern is different.
Across all MM categories, the most common result is 'no change’, meaning clinicians stayed in the same type of area. The largest group is MM2, where 1,265 clinicians did not change category. The same pattern holds in more rural settings, including MM5 (332) and MM7 (115). This stability is a good sign for Queensland communities. When more clinicians stay in place, teams can retain local knowledge, patients are more likely to see familiar staff, and services can plan rosters and recruitment with greater confidence.
The smaller share of movement also points to a change in direction. In several categories, movement to less rural areas reduced compared with the previous period (MM2 moved less rural decreased by 70%, and MM4 decreased by 21%). At the same time, some categories recorded increased movement to more rural areas (MM5 moved more rural increased by 44%, with increases also in MM6 (18%) and MM7 (13%)).
These results suggest a greater willingness to move further rural. For us, this matters because retention and stability support safer service delivery, better continuity of care, while also reducing the burden of repeated recruitment.
References
1.Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, National Health Workforce Dataset 2024. Australian Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Canberra. Accessed via Queensland Health, Brisbane.
2.Health Workforce Division. 2026. MM2-7 nursing, midwifery, allied health, medicine data 2024/25. Queensland Health, Brisbane.
