Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 233: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the process for allowing a doctor to treat medical card and general practitioner visit card patients at their practice. [5871/09]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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The Health Service Executive (HSE) has responsibility for the selection and recruitment of general practitioners to provide services under the General Medical Services (GMS) Scheme.

At present there are two options for entry into the GMS for fully qualified vocationally trained General Practitioners. These are:

Vacancies arising from the retirement, resignation or death of an existing GMS doctor or where posts are created in response to an identified need for an additional doctor in an area;

Recruitment as an assistant with a view to partnership, where an existing GMS contract holder requests approval from the HSE for the creation of a post of assistant with a view to partnership within that practice.

Recruitment to any vacancies as outlined above or as an assistant with a view to partnership is by way of an open competition.

Under the terms of an Agreement between my Department and the Irish Medical Organisation, the HSE is required, when filling a vacant GP patient panel or creating a new patient panel, to take account of the potential viability of such a panel under a range of headings including:

The number of GMS patients on the list;

The age/sex profile of the patients on the list;

The geographic area in which the practice is situated;

The number and age profile of the GMS doctors in the area, and their list sizes;

The private practice profile of the area in question, including the ratio of private to public patients in the area;

The population size in the area and surrounding areas;

The factors advanced by the applicant doctor in support of his/her application;

The particular public health needs of the area in question.

When the GP Visit card was introduced in 2005, a once off arrangement was put in place for doctors to enter the GMS Scheme with a limited contract to allow them to treat this cohort of patients only. The entry criteria were that doctors must be vocationally trained and be in practice on 1st July 2005 and have been in practice for a period of one whole year prior to that date. This right of entry is limited for a period of five years to the acceptance of GP Visit Card patients. These doctors will be entitled to a full GMS contract after the five year period. In the case of doctors who on or before 1st July 2005 had entered into a partnership with an existing practitioner, the five year period is reduced to two years.