Free GP care - Hope for healthcare

IT is rare in the weeks preceding the budget to find a politician willing to commit to initiatives requiring expenditure, so junior health minister Roisín Shortall’s remarks on the Government’s promise of free GP care for all by 2015 are a welcome surprise.

Her declaration that she was “very confident” of financial provision being made to allow the first phase of the plan — an end to fees for those on the long-term illness scheme — proceed by March won’t be tested until next month but it is a hopeful sign that not all election promises have a value less than the paper they’re printed on.

The abolition of GP fees is a “spend a penny to save a pound” idea — the kind of long-term thinking for which governments are not generally known.

The logic is that if more people attended their GP — and affordability is a real issue here — at an earlier stage of whatever health concern they have, it would mean fewer high-cost interventions in acute hospitals later on.

That would be a saving in both human and financial terms. It could also restore some public faith in politicians and that would be a tonic in itself.