The Federal Government has rejected a push to accelerate the transition of GP training back to the colleges.

Earlier this week, the RACGP confirmed it had been in talks with the Department of Health to bring the handover forward by almost two years, to as early as May next year.

In April, the RACGP said it had a written agreement with the department that it would hand over control of the contracts for the nine Regional Training Organisations as part of a three-year transition plan.

Under the agreement, the colleges were also going to take charge of the Remote Vocational Training Scheme from 2020.