Irish College of General Practitioners welcomes the establishment of the Strategic Review of General Practice.
ICGP highlights urgency of GP workforce crisis and looks forward to delivery of report of the Strategic Review Project Group by Autumn 2023.
The Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) is the professional body for general practice in Ireland. The ICGP is the representative organisation for education, training and standards in general practice with 4,200 members, comprising over 85% of practicing GPs in Ireland, and over 900 trainees in supervised practice.
Responding to the announcement of the establishment of the Department of Health Review Strategic Review of General Practice, the Medical Director of the ICGP, Dr Diarmuid Quinlan, said: “We believe this Strategic Review will play a huge role in helping find, resource and implement urgent solutions to the GP workforce and workload crisis. This is crucial to enable patients to have timely access to GP care.”
“We know that 14% of GPs are over 65 years of age. This group of 500-600 GPs is likely to retire in the next 3-4 years. We are training 70% more GPs than we did 6 years ago, we face an expanding population and greater demand for GP services.
More and more patients are unable to register with a GP, and there are significant waiting times for routine appointments.”
The former President of the ICGP, and the author of the ICGP’s “Shaping the Future” discussion paper, Prof. Tom O’Dowd, said: “We know that the solutions lie in the key stakeholders working together and we can now begin the process of finding, resourcing and implementing innovative solutions to this crisis. “
The CEO of the ICGP, Fintan Foy, said: “ This is a significant step forward to enable timely patient access to their GP. General practice needs more resources to meet both existing demand and future demand. We look forward to participating in the process and contributing to the final report from the Strategic Review Project Group by autumn 2023.”
In its “Shaping the Future” discussion paper (September 2022), the ICGP proposed the potential solutions to the GP workforce and workload crisis:
- Expand GP-led Multidisciplinary Teams.
- Double the number of GP Practice Nurses.
- Resource the career expectations of future GPs.
- Provide suitable premises for GP-led Multidisciplinary teams.
- Support suitably-qualified non-EU GPs to become valued members of the GP workforce.
- Increase remote consulting.
- Introduce a career pipeline for rural general practice.
- Develop the role of Practice Manager.
- Increase exposure to General Practice in Medical Schools.
- Invest in GP data-informatics to drive policy and practice.
The Discussion Paper “Shaping the Future of General Practice” is available here.
Department of Health press release here.
ENDS
ISSUED BY: Aileen O’Meara, Communications Consultant, Irish College of General Practitioners.
Tel. 01 2542984 / 087 2239830 Email: ICGP.news@gmail.com. www.icgp.ie