Family doctor visits to be free by 2015

ATTENDING the family doctor will be free from 2015, according to the minister with responsibility for primary care.

Under phase one of the Government’s plan, 56,000 people suffering from a variety of long-term illnesses will receive free GP care from next March. This will be extended to the entire population by 2015, details of which were outlined yesterday by Junior Minister Roisín Shortall.

Addressing the country’s first primary care conference at the Livinghealth primary care clinic in Mitchelstown, Co Cork, Ms Shortall said she was “confident” of meeting the March deadline that would see an end to GP fees for people who avail of the long-term illness scheme but who are not medical card holders.

When asked where the estimated €15 million in funding would come from to pay for this, she said she was “very confident we will have the allocation in the [budget] estimates”. The remaining phases include:

- Extension of free GP care to those in the HighTech drugs scheme in 2013, at an additional cost of €15m, bringing another 50,000 people into the loop.

- Subsidised GP care across the rest of the population in 2014.

- Free GP care for all by 2015, at a cost of about €300m based on the current value placed on private GP fees.

Currently, two-thirds of people pay GP fees. It is free in the North.

Ms Shortall said she recognised the need to build the capacity of primary care teams if primary care was to fulfil its potential of meeting 90% to 95% of health needs in the community.

To achieve this, it would need more GPs. Practice nurses and researchers at Trinity College Dublin are working on a model which will give a clear picture of supply and demand, due for completion next February, she said.

She also hoped to introduce a fast-track training programme for GPs to boost numbers and to ringfence funding for primary care. Currently, there are fewer than 400 primary care teams, despite an original target of 600 by 2011.

The shortage of accommodation centres to house these teams — where health professionals operate under one roof — is also a problem. There are about 30 centres.

Dr Tom O’Callaghan, clinic director of the Livinghealth clinic, said 200 centres were needed but this was difficult in a climate when banks were not lending and GPs were unwilling to take risks.

Ms Shortall said €250m would be allocated for the development of primary care centres over the next five years and that the HSE was working on identifying areas of greatest need. She said blackspots had been identified, mostly in disadvantaged areas and that the Government would prioritise these areas.

However, Dr John Sheehan, a GP at Blackpool Bridge surgery in Cork city, said he had been trying unsuccessfully for six years to get the HSE to go ahead with a primary care centre there, for which €2m had been ringfenced.

Dr Sheehan said a HSE official recently told him it “remained committed to the project” but at this stage he was facing building a new surgery himself.

Dr O’Callaghan said primary care centres could be financed through the introduction of a bond aimed at socially motivated investors guaranteed a return after a defined term and whose investment could be used to fund centres up front.

In addition, buildings could be bought from NAMA and retrofitted or centres could be built on greenfield or brownfield sites, creating employment.