Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Question 164: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children if she will quantify the number of general practitioners operating in the country; if she will give a breakdown of the figures per county; the steps she plans to undertake to improve the situation where many people find it difficult to access their general practitioner or to become a new patient of a general practitioner, in view of the increased workload undertaken by general practitioners; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15305/05]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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Figures contained in the 2003 annual report of the general medical services payments board, the latest published report, indicate the number of general practitioners holding general medical services, GMS, and other contracts in respect of providing services under the primary childhood immunisation scheme, the Health (Amendment) Act 1996, Heartwatch and the methadone treatment scheme was 2,181. Of this number 1,971 held GMS contracts.

It is possible to provide details of the number of general practitioners who held GMS and other contracts in 2003 by each Health Service Executive area only. This is set out in the following table:

The Health Service Executive has been requested to provide a breakdown of the number of general practitioners who currently hold GMS and other contracts for each county and to forward this directly to the Deputy.

The current GMS contract which general practitioners hold with their local area of the Health Service Executive provides for the assignment of public patients (medical card holders) to participating doctors when their doctor of choice is unable to provide service. If the Deputy is aware of a particular case where an eligible person for GMS services is unable to access a general practitioner GMS contract holder I will be happy to have the case investigated on receipt of the details.

With regard to manpower in general practice, the Department of Health and Children has met the Irish College of General Practitioners, which is responsible for the organisation of training of GPs in Ireland, and it was agreed to increase the number of training places from the current 84 to 150. It was agreed with the ICGP that this would be best achieved on a phased basis with 22 new places being provided in each of the years 2005 to 2007. Funding has been provided to allow the Health Service Executive implement this development in 2005.