Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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GP services are provided without charge to people who hold a medical card or GP visit card under the GMS scheme. Under the terms of the current GMS contract, GPs are required to provide eligible patients with ''all proper and necessary treatment of a kind usually undertaken by a general practitioner and not requiring special skill or experience of a degree or kind which general practitioners cannot reasonably be expected to possess.".

Clinical determinations as to whether a blood test should be taken to either assist in the diagnosis of illness or the treatment of a condition are made by the GP concerned. There is no provision under the GMS GP contract for persons who hold a medical card or GP visit card to be charged for such blood tests.

People who do not hold a medical card or GP visit card access GP services, including phlebotomy services, on a private basis. The fees charged by individual GPs for private consultations are a matter of private contract between clinicians and their patients.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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This PQ is being referred to the HSE for direct reply to the Deputy as it relates to a service delivery matter.