Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 26 May 2004
80 Dr. Twomey asked the Minister for Health and Children if he will report on the primary care steering group’s view that the post-graduate medical programme ignores international consensus in medical education to integrate basis sciences with clinical practice. [15463/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraI established the national primary care steering group in June 2002 to give leadership and guidance on several key elements of the implementation of the primary care strategy and to give policy advice to my Department and other relevant bodies. The membership includes representation from the medical and nursing professions, health and social care professionals, the community and voluntary pillar, service users, statutory agencies and service providers. The steering group is chaired by Professor Ivan Perry, department of epidemiology and public health, University College, Cork.
In 2003, the Minister for Education and Science and I jointly established a working group to examine and make recommendations relating to the organisation and delivery of undergraduate medical education and training in Ireland. This group is chaired by Professor Pat Fottrell. The working group invited submissions from interested parties, including the primary care steering group, to assist it in its work and it is expected to make its report before the end of 2004. The primary care steering group, in exercising its role in providing policy advice, gave detailed consideration to a range of issues relating to medical education and training, which impact on the successful implementation of the primary care strategy, and made a submission to the medical education and training group.
The steering group's view was that the primary care service model and policy present a range of development requirements in the provision of appropriate education and training for medical practitioners at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels so as to ensure that practitioners are equipped with the appropriate skills and competencies for effective service delivery in the primary care setting. It made a number of recommendations in support of these objectives. The views expressed are a matter for the steering group in the first instance and form part of a SWOT — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats — analysis of the issues being considered by the working group chaired by Professor Fottrell.
