Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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824. To ask the Minister for Health the number of general practitioner practices with capacity to accept new patients in counties Longford and Westmeath in tabular form. [13972/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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GPs are self-employed practitioners and therefore may establish practices at a place of their own choosing. There is no prescribed ratio of GPs to patients and the State does not regulate the number of GPs that can set up in a town or community. Under the GMS scheme, the HSE contracts GPs to provide medical services without charge to medical card and GP visit card holders.

Under the terms of the GMS and GP Visit Card contracts, the maximum number of medical card or GP visit card patients on a GP's patient panel may not exceed 2,000, or 2,200 if the GP also holds an under 6 contract, except in exceptional circumstances. There is no minimum number of patients specified for a panel. The State does not prescribe the number of private patients that may be registered with a GP; this is a matter for individual GP practices.

Where a GMS patient experiences difficulty in finding a GP to accept him/her as a patient, the person concerned having unsuccessfully applied to at least three GPs in the area can apply to the HSE National Medical Card Unit which has the power to assign that person to a GP's GMS patient list.

People who do not hold a medical card or GP visit card access GP services on a private basis and can make enquiries directly to any GP practice they wish to register with. As private contractors, it is a matter for each individual GP to decide whether to accept additional private patients. Information on the capacity of GP practices to accept private patients is not collected by the HSE.

In relation to GP practices that have capacity to accept new GMS patients, as this is a service matter I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.