Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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584. To ask the Minister for Health the average wait time for a GP appointment in Ballyhaunis. [64686/25]

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 GP services without charge to medical card and GP visit card holders. Currently, there are 2,587 GPs contracted to provide services under the GMS Scheme, and a further 634 GPs who do not hold a GMS contract hold some other contract(s) 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. GPs prioritise appointments based on urgency and health need, and issues regarding the scheduling of consultations should be raised directly with the practice concerned.

Several measures have been taken in recent years to increase the number of GPs practicing throughout the country and thereby improve GP access. The measures taken include significantly increasing investment in general practice to increase capacity and 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.