Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I am taking the Adjournment on behalf of my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Harney. I thank Senator McFadden for her remarks.

As she will be aware, the provision of general practitioner, GP, out-of-hours co-operatives is an essential part of our health service policy, particularly of strengthening primary care services and ensuring that, to the greatest extent possible, care needs are met in that setting.

Out-of-hours co-operatives allow GPs to manage the provision of urgently needed care for their patients in the evenings, at weekends and on public holidays. It also affords them reasonable off-duty arrangements. While there is no obligation on GPs to participate in these co-operatives, general practitioners contracted by the HSE under the GMS scheme must make suitable arrangements to enable contact to be made with them or a locum or deputy for emergencies outside normal practice hours.

Out-of-hours co-operatives are now in place in most parts of the country. The service can be accessed through a single lo-call telephone number in each HSE region and caters for both public and private patients.

The MIDOC GP out-of-hours service is a partnership initiative between the HSE and GPs in the midlands region. The service commenced in December 2002 in County Laois and now operates through five co-operatives, namely Laois, west Offaly, Athlone, east Westmeath and Longford. This accounts for 90% of the former Midland Health Board region. The only remaining areas in this region not covered by the service are Edenderry, County Offaly, Moate, County Westmeath and Tullamore.

There are currently 101 GPs participating in the MIDOC out-of-hours service, covering a population in excess of 204,000. There are on average 6,100 calls received monthly, 58% of which require follow-up at an out-of-hours treatment centre.

The co-operatives offer responsive, high-quality services from well-equipped modern clinical centres. All pay and non-pay costs associated with the day-to-day administration of MIDOC are met by the HSE. The budget for the MIDOC service in 2009 was almost €5.2 million, while the national budget for GP out-of-hours services in 2009 was in the region of €100 million.

The HSE published a review of GP out-of-hours services in March 2010. This was the first national review to be undertaken since the commencement of publicly-funded GP co-operatives in 1999. It provided an opportunity to consider the nine national GP co-operatives and the four extended-hours services.

The HSE national review of GP out-of-hours services makes 13 recommendations designed to strengthen and standardise the service across the country. These include a recommendation that the service be extended to cover parts of the country where there is currently no out-of-hours provision to ensure 100% out-of-hours coverage nationally.

I am pleased to advise the House that the HSE has assured the Department of Health and Children it has no plans to curtail or discontinue the MIDOC out-of-hours service.