Results 3,481-3,500 of 26,350 for speaker:David Cullinane

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: I will stop Dr. Quinlan there. The official training body, the ICGP is telling me we do not have enough GPs and by 2028 we still will not have enough GPs.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: Dr. Quinlan just said that by the ICGP's own measurement, even by 2028, looking five years down the road, we will still not have enough GPs.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: We are dealing with this State, which has a particular challenge. That makes for sobering reading. I will build on that. We are at a point where we have 2,807 full time equivalent GPs. Maybe about 700 are going to retire, 500 of whom are whole-time equivalents. We have to get to 6,000 by 2028 if we want to provide the best general practice service we can provide. By April of this year,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: That is what I am saying. In the budget this year there was a big announcement of an additional 300,000 patients or more, plus the six-years-olds and seven-year-olds. A figure close to 400,000 new patients will have GP-only cards. Is that not correct?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: The Minister outlined the timeframe. In the budget he said it was April of next year and that there would be engagement with the Irish College of General Practitioners and other representative bodies, including the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, to reach the point where this would be in place by April of next year. Is the system ready for that, from the perspective of the Irish College of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: What would be the consequences of doing it? From the witnesses' perspective, if on April 1 next year, 400,000 get a new GP card as the Minister wants, what will happen in the short to medium term, for example?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: What does that mean in practice? We need to be straight about we are facing into. Like everybody else, I want to see more people covered with GP cards, but we also need to put the infrastructure in place. We need more training and funding. We need to train more GPs. We need to have a new contract that reflects a modern GP practice. I accept all of that, but the clock is now ticking. We...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: Is Dr. Farrell saying the immediate consequence of doing it too quickly , as he sees it, is that the wait times for GP appointments will increase?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: What engagement was there with the Irish College of General Practitioners, ICGP, before the budget announcement that there would be an additional 300,000 cards, or 400,000 if we include the six- and seven-year-olds? In terms of scale, that is obviously a lot of people. What level of engagement was there before that announcement?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: I know, but the latter provides the training and projections of capacity. What level of engagement was there?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: None. It is the job of the ICGP to make sure we have enough capacity, that we are looking to the future to know what capacity exists, and to know the projections in terms of changing demand and demographics. Is that not essentially what it does? Does it also provide the training?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: It is the training body, and yet there was no engagement whatsoever with it about doing something very substantial, which is the issuing of 400,000 new cards. It was not asked what impact that would have on the system.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: No. Was that a mistake?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: I am not talking about negotiations. That happens with the IMO. I am talking about the capacity to deliver something big. Was it a mistake not to have engaged with the ICGP?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: Have the witnesses been told this is going to kick in next April? When is it going to kick in? Is there some indicative timeframe? Have they been given any direction of travel as to what is going to happen?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: Not directly. That is extraordinary. We have a big announcement. I support the roll out of more GP cards. Obviously, we all want to see it. However, we need to get the foundations right. That there was no engagement with the training body that provides the capacity when we are trying to roll out something so ambitious was a big failure on the Department's side and the Minister's side....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: I acknowledge the good work done by the ICGP, GPs, general practice staff, including practice nurses, and all those who work in primary care. We accept that, if we get primary care and the relationship between it, the enhanced community care system and community care right, we can take substantial pressure off our acute hospitals. What is happening in emergency departments is stark. A HIQA...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: I am sorry. I hate to interrupt, but we had this discussion earlier and it was accepted. I explicitly asked whether we would reach the target. I have been told that we are facing into 500 whole-time equivalent retirees, so I am building that number into the target. We can accept that there are significant challenges in meeting these targets.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Recruitment, Retention and Manpower Planning Issues: Irish College of General Practitioners (14 Dec 2022)

David Cullinane: If I could just make-----