Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to be delivering this service which is badly needed for people in north Wicklow. He is right that I would have liked to have seen it delivered earlier, as I know he would have also. We are one of the last parts of the country without an out of hours general practitioner, GP, service, which is very important for looking after citizens in north Wicklow and to ease pressure on the acute hospital setting. I am committed to the development of an out of hours GP service for north Wicklow which can provide the appropriate level of cover for the population in our area. The development of such a service will allow GPs to participate fully in the provision of an integrated health care system, providing medical services that are appropriate, timely and effective, easily accessible and responsive to the needs of patients.

There is funding provision for the introduction of a structured out of hours GP service for the south Dublin and north Wicklow area in the HSE 2018 national service plan. I previously directed the Deputy to page 28 of the plan. This service is intended to cover the night time hours from Monday to Friday and to provide cover at weekends and public holidays, providing urgent general practitioner services to patients outside normal surgery hours. The service will include initial triage and GP consultation at treatment centres or home visits as appropriate, in accordance with HIQA standards for safer better health care. The procurement process to identify a service provider is expected to commence shortly and, subject to successful selection of a suitable service provider, the service is scheduled to be operational in the second half of this year. As I have said, that means this summer. Most importantly, the HSE will be arranging to meet with local GPs to consult them on the development of this service and to brief them on these developments. I expect that to happen in the next few days.

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