Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)
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Question 194: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children if GMS doctors are obliged to carry out home visits; if, under the GMS scheme, a person cannot change his or her general practitioner only after six months; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39092/05]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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Under the General Medical Service, GMS, scheme contract, which participating general practitioners hold with the Health Service Executive, general practitioners are obliged to provide surgery and domiciliary visits, where appropriate, for their medical card patients, for 40 hours each week, at times and locations as agreed with their local area of the Health Service Executive. They must also make arrangements to enable contact to be made with them or a locum-deputy for emergencies outside of these hours. It should be noted that general practitioners make a clinical decision on whether a domiciliary visit is appropriate based on the symptoms of the patient, as presented to them at the time.

The GMS scheme provides for a choice of doctor for the patient. A person who no longer wishes to avail of the services of the general practitioner with whom he or she is registered may seek to be transferred to the list of another participating GMS general practitioner in his or her area. Requests for such transfers are made to the local area of the Health Service Executive by the medical card holder and are arranged as soon as possible. In some instances, for example, where patients themselves fail to secure their doctor of choice, they may be assigned to doctors by the HSE for short periods but such decisions are matters for the HSE to make bearing in mind the particular local issues involved.