Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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309. To ask the Minister for Health the length of the waiting list for GP services in each county in each of the past five years, in tabular form. [40248/25]

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. As of the 1st of July, there are 2,566 GPs contracted to provide services under the GMS Scheme and a further 632 GPs do not hold a GMS contract but hold at least one other contract with the HSE for the provision of health services.

As GPs are private practitioners, the Department of Health and the HSE have no role in relation to the scheduling of GP/practice nurse consultations and do not monitor appointment waiting times. Similarly, the Department and the HSE do not monitor the length of time it may take for a person who does not hold a medical card or GP visit card to be accepted to a GPs list of private patients. GPs prioritise appointments based on urgency and health need, and issues regarding the scheduling of consultations should be raised directly with the practice concerned.

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.

The HSE website provides a "find a GP" facility which can assist in locating and contacting GP in or around the area concerned.

Several measures have been taken in recent years to increase the number of GPs practising throughout the country and thereby improve GP access. The measures taken include significantly increasing investment in general practice to improve the attractiveness of working in this sector, increasing the number of GP trainees, and recruiting GPs from abroad under the International Medical Graduate (IMG) Rural GP Programme.