Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It might be useful to quote the relevant section of the GMS contract. In that regard, section 11 states:

The medical practitioner shall provide for eligible persons, on behalf of the relevant Health Board, all proper and necessary treatment of a kind usually undertaken by a general practitioner and not requiring special skill or experience of a degree or kind which general practitioners cannot reasonably be expected to possess.

In the context of the issue raised by the Deputy, the section also states:

The medical practitioner shall:...furnish to a person whom he has examined and for whom he is obliged to provide services (or, in the case of a child, to his parent) a certificate in relation, to any illness noticed during the examination which is reasonably required by him or by the parent as the case may be. Such examinations as the doctor may carry out on a patient prior to the issue to him of first and final Social Welfare certificates are comprehended by the capitation payments. Payment under this contract is not made in respect of certain other certificates required, e.g. under the Social Welfare Acts or for the purposes of insurance or assurance policies or for the issue of driving licenses.

Under paragraph 27 of the GMS contract, a medical practitioner shall not demand or accept any payment or consideration from a GMS patient for services provided by him or her which are covered by the contract. Any alleged instances of eligible patients being requested to pay for a service covered by the contract, such as the provision of a sick certificate as outlined in the quotation, is viewed as a serious matter by the HSE and the Department. The HSE's local health offices will fully investigate any reported incidents of eligible patients being charged for services covered by the GMS contract.

The Deputy may also wish to note that the Department of Social Protection pays fees to medical certifiers, who are mainly general practitioners, for the completion and issue of medical certificates for illness benefit and the completion of medical reports for various social welfare schemes. The fees are paid for the provision of medical opinion which is furnished on an official certificate or report form. Consultation fees charged by general practitioners to private patients and to GMS patients outside the terms of the GMS contract are a matter of private contract between the clinicians and the patients. While I have no role in respect of such fees, I would expect clinicians to have regard to the overall economic situation in setting them.

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