The ranks of proceduralists, doctors who are trained to provide obstetric care, anaesthetics and emergency care, are due to thin dramatically during the next decade.

At the same time, there has been a reduction in the number of doctors training to take on the role.

"I was at an anaesthetic conference recently and they were all grey-haired people like me sitting in the audience there were very few from the next generation," Gloucester GP proceduralist Garry Lyford, who practises anaesthetics, said.

The exact number of GPs with proceduralist skills working in the Hunter is not known.

Dr Lyford, 53, said he believed a culture of litigation was a significant factor in why relatively few GPs were becoming proceduralists.

"I think there has to be a philosophical change in the way we view medicine," he said.

"We are increasingly teaching people to look at their medical risk and limit it. If you are practising procedural medicine it can be seen that you are increasing your risk of an adverse event."

Hunter Rural Division of General Practice chief executive Alison Crocker said the decline in proceduralist skills was alarming.

"We are not getting the coverage of skills anymore," she said. "The further out you go the more dependent people are on procedural GPs."

A Hunter New England Health spokeswoman said the health service was working with the Barwon, Hunter Rural and New England divisions of general practice on succession planning for the proceduralist workforce.

"Offering a 12-month proceduralist skills program in Armidale, enables us to offer up-skilling to GPs in the areas of anaesthetics and obstetrics," she said.