Stephen Donnelly
Question:711. Deputy Stephen Donnelly asked the Minister for Health the share of the health budget allocated to primary care in each of the years 2016 to 2019, inclusive, and to date in 2020. [3403/20]
View answerThursday, 5 March 2020
Questions (711)
Written answers
The following table sets out the share of the primary care budget in each of the years 2016 to 2019.
Primary care incorporates a range of multi-disciplinary services delivered by GP's, community nursing and health and social care professionals. The services provided include physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, paediatric homecare and community intervention teams.
The HSE’s Primary Care Reimbursement Service (PCRS) supports the delivery of a wide range of these primary care services to the general public through over 7,000 primary care contractors across a range of community health schemes. These schemes form the infrastructure through which the Irish Health System delivers a significant proportion of Primary Care to the public. It is through PCRS that GPs receive a range of fees and allowances under the GMS scheme, although it should be noted that the total PCRS budget includes a range of other payments, the largest proportion of which is accounted for by drugs and medicines for both GMS and non-GMS payments.
The figures set out in the following table exclude expenditure on social care services.
|
|
2016 |
2017 |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
|
|
€M |
€M |
€M |
€M |
€M |
|
Primary Care |
784 |
820 |
851 |
895 |
924 |
|
PCRS |
2,545 |
2,566 |
2,619 |
2,888 |
2,951 |
|
|
3,329 |
3,386 |
3,470 |
3,783 |
3,875 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Overall Total Budget |
13,514 |
14,156 |
15,222 |
16,471 |
17,056 |
|
Primary Care share |
24.6% |
23.9% |
22.8% |
23.0% |
22.7% |
Note. The figures for each year 2016 to 2019 are based on budget outturn, and the figures for the year 2020 are as per the National Service Plan 2020.