Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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190. To ask the Minister for Health the procedures whereby a family in an area has no family general practitioner, as the general practices in the area are not taking on additional patients; the position regarding the HSE allocating a particular general practitioner to the family; if there is a requirement on general practitioners to take up these allocations from the HSE; the period of time this lasts for; if the general practitioner is free to discharge the family from the practitioner's practice after a six-month period; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40222/18]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Where a medical card or GP visit card holder experiences difficulty in finding a GP to accept him/her as a patient, the HSE has the power to assign that person to a GP's GMS patient list where the person has been removed from another GP's list or refused entry onto a GP's list, and the person has unsuccessfully applied to at least three GPs in the area who are contracted to provide services under the GMS scheme.

The assignment of a GMS patient to a GP's list can be reviewed by the HSE on the request of the GP after 6 months from the date of assignment, and, if appropriate, the patient can then be reassigned to an alternative GP.

Persons who do not hold a medical card or GP visit card access GP services on a private basis. GPs are private contractors and issues relating to the acceptance of private patients are a matter of private contract between the clinician and his/her patients. While I have no role in relation to such matters, I would expect clinicians to consider the importance of patients having access to a GP service close to home when deciding whether or not to accept private patients.