A local GP has left the Prime Minister a little red-faced by suggesting he take a leaf out of Cuba's book when formulating the Federal Government's public health overhaul.

Kevin Rudd visited Queanbeyan Hospital in New South Wales on Monday to announce that the Government will spend an extra $632 million over the next 10 years to train a record number of doctors.

But the so-called picture opportunity didn't quite go to plan, with Dr Jeannie Ellis, the GP in charge of the hospital's emergency department, telling Mr Rudd to look to Cuba for a solution to Australia's ailing health system.

"Maybe Australia should take a leaf out of the Cuban healthcare system's book where they have something like $20,000 less per capita and they have exactly the same healthcare indicators as Australia," she said.

"I've lived in Cuba for a long time and I can tell you that they run a very, very good healthcare system and they get a lot of bang for their buck over there."

Mr Rudd says the extra funding announced today will mean the doubling of GP training positions available for medical graduates from 600 to 1,200 places a year by 2014.

The number of specialist training places will also go up from 360 to 900 positions. And there will be a doubling of GP work experience places for junior doctors up to 975 places a year by 2013.

The Prime Minister says the policy will target rural areas experiencing doctor shortages.

"This pattern across rural and regional Australia has not been getting better. It's probably been getting worse," he said.

"So what can you do about it? The first thing is to make sure your overall supply of trained GPs increases. This is a very big step forward. We're talking about 5,500 GPs.

"The second is that the distribution of both those GP training places and the distribution of the specialist training places will be very mindful of the needs of regional and rural Australia."

Mr Rudd says the plan will be fully off-set and the details associated with the funding will be outlined in the May budget.

Not enough

Dr Ellis says she welcomes the extra numbers announced by the Government but says it is not enough to fix the problem.

"You can't just put a whole bunch of new medical graduates out into rural areas and expect that you're going to have the same level of health care provided," she said.

"You need supervision. You need to maintain standards. So you need senior clinicians."

The Rural Doctors Association of Australia agrees, but the association's president, Dr Nola Maxfield, says the Government needs to pay bonuses to encourage doctors to regional areas otherwise, she says, the shortages will continue.

"We want to be able to show young doctors when they come out and they think about where they're going to work, what they're going to do in the longer term, that we are actually price competitive with other parts of the medical profession," Dr Maxfield said.

"Otherwise they may well choose to be emergency medicine specialists in the city and we won't get our rural GPs."

Dr Andrew Pesce, the president of the Australian Medical Association, says the states need to make sure they fulfil their part of the bargain.

"We now need the states and territories to come on board and make sure the funded positions are used for the purposes that is intended, and that is to make sure that we do train enough doctors in the future," Dr Pesce said.

"In the past, funding hasn't been translated to adequate training positions and now the states and territories have to come on board and make sure the junior [doctors] have access to this training."

'Bullying game'

The new doctor numbers are part of the Government's carrot to tempt the states and territories into supporting its hospital overhaul ahead of next month's special leaders' meeting to discuss it.

Some premiers have deep reservations about the plan, with state and territory leaders scheduled to have a phone hook-up later this week.

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who was the health minister for four years in the Howard government, says he is sceptical of Mr Rudd's plans.

"What we've seen from this Prime Minister over the last few weeks, in particular, is ending the blame game to be sure. It's been replaced by the bullying game," Mr Abbott said.

"Anyone who has been watching the footage of the Prime Minister and the state premiers would know that cooperation between them has all but broken down.

"That picture of the Prime Minister and [NSW] Premier [Kristina] Keneally did not lie in the way that press releases can so easily be misleading."