Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

The Government is fully committed to the implementation of the principles contained in the primary care strategy, which provides a template for the reform and development of primary care services. The chief executive officer of the HSE has also emphasised the importance of developing primary care services, both as the appropriate service for the delivery of the majority of people's health and social care needs and to complement the services provided by acute hospitals. This is an important priority of the executive and has my full endorsement.

In order to support further implementation of the strategy in 2006, additional revenue funding of €16 million has been provided. Of this funding €10 million is to support the establishment of 75 to 100 primary care teams nationally. This will enable the provision of 300 additional front-line personnel to work alongside GPs to provide integrated and accessible services in the community. Work by the HSE to establish these primary care teams is under way. The executive will be targeting the funding so as to provide each local health office of the HSE with the potential to develop up to three primary care teams. The executive hopes to focus where possible on areas of disadvantage and with health inequalities in planning for the establishment of these teams.

A sum of €4 million has been provided for the establishment of additional general practitioner training places and €2 million to enhance general practitioner out-of-hours co-operatives. This means that, taking into account development funding provided since 2002, €28 million will be available in 2006 specifically to support the implementation of the primary care strategy.

Wider implementation of the primary care strategy will focus on developing new ways of working and of reorganising the resources already available to the health service in line with the service model described in the strategy. This whole-system approach to implementation means change will be required in many sectors in the health service and not solely within the primary care system.

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