Dr. Diarmuid Quinlan:

The Deputy touched on rural general practice. The ICGP is very supportive of this and we are co-hosting a global rural medicine conference in the University of Limerick in June of this year, so we are absolutely committed to it. I am also very conscious from my conversations with GPs in County Clare of how fragile the GP ecosystem is in Clare and the concerns about the retirement of one or two GPs in the more rural practices - no GP, no village. We share the Deputy’s concerns on that.

The Deputy asked about continuing the gains made during the pandemic. Electronic prescribing is fantastic, in particular for our patients. Just yesterday, I sent off a prescription for one of my patients who was at home in Cork. He rang me to ask could we send his prescription to his local pharmacy as he had gone back to college in Dublin, and I was able to email his prescription to a pharmacy in Dublin. This is bringing phenomenal benefits. Our colleague mentioned earlier how, given the right supports and encouragement, the HSE turned on electronic prescribing overnight, which was something we had been seeking for a long time. There are further benefits we can harness from electronic prescribing but it is certainly a great start.

In terms of whether we are going to maintain the benefits of the pandemic, the answer is absolutely “Yes”. One of the huge benefits we have had is that we have moved a lot of our education online. Twice a month, we have a webinar for in excess of 1,200 GPs and much of our GP education is delivered online, although, obviously, we have a blended approach because some of it needs to be face to face. We are absolutely committed to maintaining the benefits of the pandemic in terms of IT.

On the role of GP nurses, in my practice, with the assistant GPs we have one whole-time equivalent GP nurse. If we were in the UK, we would probably have between five or six and ten GP nurses. We absolutely need the resources to employ and upscale our GP nurses.

I might leave the terms and conditions issue to Mr. Moran because that is more within the remit of the IMO.