Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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235. To ask the Minister for Health the evaluation being undertaken to establish the numbers of private patients who cannot register with a GP practice in their community; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14273/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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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. Currently there are 2,553 GPs contracted to provide services under the GMS Scheme, and a further 621 GPs that do not hold a GMS contract but hold at least one other contract with the HSE for the provision of health services.

Where a person that holds a medical card or GP visit card, experiences difficulty in finding a GP to accept them as a patient, the person concerned having unsuccessfully applied to at least three GPs in the area (or fewer if there are fewer GPs in the area) can apply to the HSE Eligibility Unit which has the power to assign a GMS patient to a GP's GMS patient list in accordance with the GMS contract.

Persons 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 practitioners, it is a matter for each individual GP to decide whether to accept additional private patients. Accordingly, the HSE does not maintain information related to the registration/non-registration of persons who do not hold a medical card or GP visit card with GPs.