David Cullinane
Question:1094. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the estimated cost of 50 additional public-only general practitioners. [41764/21]
View answerThursday, 9 September 2021
Questions (1094)
Written answers
General Practitioners are private practitioners, most of who hold contracts to provide medical services on behalf of the HSE to people with Medical Cards and GP Visit Cards and under various other schemes.
Under the General Medical Services (GMS) contract, GPs are reimbursed for a range of services they provide to medical card and GP visit card holders. GPs are remunerated for these services primarily on a capitation basis, with a range of additional support payments and fees for specific items of service.
The HSE does not directly hire GPs and there is no approved salary scale in the public service for a GP post. Equally, there is no appropriate measure of other costs required to ensure that a directly-employed GP could provide an adequate service (such as the cost of support staff, equipment costs, or other overheads). For this reason it is not possible to quantify the financial implications of directly hiring GPs to provide services to the public health system under the GMS and other schemes.
Question No. 1095 answered with Question No. 1083.