Vol. 550 No. 2
264 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Health and Children if he will make a statement on the recent call by the chief executive of the Irish College of General Practitioners for an immediate and fundamental review of general practitioner manpower needs. [7619/02]
The chief executive of the Irish College of General Practitioners is reported as having called for a review of general practitioner manpower needs in the context of the establishment of the national task force on medical staffing. The task force will, among other issues, consider the proposed development of a consultant delivered public hospital service and quantify the resource and cost implications involved. The task force will also address the reduction in working hours for non-consultant hospital doctors arising from the EU directive on working time and the medical education and training requirements of our hospital medical workforce.
While the recommendations of the national task force on medical staffing will have implications for the number of general practitioners, the document Primary Care, A New Direction, published as part of the health strategy, Quality and Fairness, A Health System for You, states that a needs assessment of the composition and number of primary care teams in each health board area will be carried out within guidelines and frameworks developed by the forthcoming national primary care task force.
