Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I am taking this debate on behalf of the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, and I thank Deputy Deenihan for raising this matter on the Adjournment. The Government is committed to the development of GP out-of-hours services as outlined in the national health and primary care strategies. Currently, out-of-hours general practitioner co-operatives are operating in at least part of all counties in the State.

In the Health Service Executive's southern region, out-of-hours general practitioner services are provided in counties Cork and Kerry by the SouthDoc co-operative. Decisions regarding the geographical areas to be covered by general practitioner out-of-hours co-operatives and any expansion of the services are made by the HSE, which has regard to the strategic, financial and other issues involved, including the readiness of general practitioners within an area to become part of a co-operative.

With regard to SouthDoc, this co-operative was established as a limited company for the provision of out-of-hours general practitioner services in 2001. Initially it began in south Kerry and west Cork. By 2003 it expanded to take in Cork city and in August 2005 it further expanded to north and east Cork. There are 365 GPs participating in the SouthDoc co-operative. It has, on average, 2,250 calls per week, and it provides services to a population of 581,000 people. There are 26 treatment centres. In Kerry, these treatment centres are located in Killarney, Cahirciveen, Tralee and Castleisland.

In 2006, approximately €34 million is included in the HSE's baseline funding for GP out-of-hours co-operative services. Of this amount, €2 million is new funding for this year. In the context of this additional funding, the HSE has advised me it is currently considering the expansion of the GP co-operative service to north Kerry along with proposals for expansion to other areas. The HSE southern area continues to work closely with the north Kerry GPs in terms of moving towards their inclusion in SouthDoc. In 2006, the HSE will have over €6 million available in its baseline funding for the SouthDoc co-operative. Between 2000 and 2005 almost €18 million has been provided to fund the out-of-hours services provided by SouthDoc. These amounts do not take into account fees for attendance on patients that participating general practitioners would receive.

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