Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Breslin and Mr. O'Brien might answer a question about Sláintecare. One of the fundamental recommendations of the Sláintecare report is that there be a reorientation of our health service away from hospital-based services towards primary care ones. However, there is a difficulty in how GP-led primary care is delivered, given the GP manpower crisis. We have difficulties recruiting new GPs. Despite the Irish College of General Practitioners, ICGP, advertising and promoting entry into general practice to new graduates, they are patently not doing so because of the GP contract and the financial model of GP care. How does the HSE or the Department propose to address the manpower crisis in general practice? It is growing more acute month on month. Jobs are not being taken up except by locumsand people are not getting the same level of service and continuity of care that they would if they had established GPs. There is a difficulty in recruiting for general practice, but because GPs are contract holders and, as such, fall outside the employment relationship, how do the HSE and Department propose to develop the primary care service and attract GPs into it?

Some 33% of GPs are over 55 years of age, so there will be retirements, but there is no active component within the Department or the HSE to engage with those GPs and determine how they will organise their retirements. Can mechanisms be put in place to help them to transition from their principalship to the next generation of GPs? Is there thinking within the Department or the HSE on how this can be done?