Dr. Emmet Kerin:

We have a hybrid of private primary care centres and HSE primary care centres but only a handful of GPs with access to them. The GPs that did not partake in the primary care centres strategy are effectively blocked from accessing them. In theory, they should have the ability to refer. If as a GP, I operate from an office down the corridor from a GP who has access to a HSE physiotherapist and I have a patient with acute back pain who needs help, the latter will probably help me. The corridor chat is perhaps the Irish way of solving issues. We need to move away from that to primary care resource centres to which we all have equitable access.