James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We will continue to press for the development of a centre in Ennis, as well as at other locations. The critical point is to have the agreement of the general practitioners in the area to come to these centres. We are offering modern purpose-built premises where they can also interact with many other members of the primary care team. From my professional experience, if one has access to a physiotherapist, one sees the opportunities for one's patients to be treated by that physiotherapist. However, if the physiotherapist is based many miles away, very often other modalities of treatment are brought into play or the patient has to be referred to a hospital to access physiotherapy services.

The same applies to mental health services. Many patients cannot afford to attend counsellors privately. If there were a public health counsellor in the primary care centre, a patient could use that service. What we would like to see in the future is a GP being able to refer patients directly to a counsellor without having to involve the psychiatric service because that is an inappropriate use of the psychiatric team's time. The GP is well positioned to determine whether medication would be best delayed and counselling sought first. It has been well proved, both here and in other jurisdictions, that the latter modality of treatment has very good outcomes.

The potential for primary care centres and their use by GPs is enormous. Earlier I referred to Mitchelstown, County Cork. There is another large primary care centre in Mallow covering three separate practices. They refer to the fourth practice which allows them to deliver a range of services that no one practice could deliver on its own. With the volume of doctors and sub-specialisation among GPs, the centre is able to offer a much wider range of services to patients, obviating the necessity for patients to have to undertake long journeys into Cork city to avail of specialist care in hospitals there.

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