General Practitioner Services

Thursday, 4 July 2024

Ceisteanna (457)

Richard Boyd Barrett

Ceist:

457. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Health the estimated cost of providing universal free GP care. [28810/24]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

GP visit card eligibility was expanded last year under the GP Agreement 2023 to all those earning up to the median household income and to all children under the 8 years of age. All persons aged 70 years and over are also eligible for a GP visit card. Following these expansions, over half the population are eligible for GP care without charges under the GMS scheme.

Implementing a general practice model that provides for GP care without charges for all would require significant change to the current model of general practice as the existing model is based on the mixed delivery of GP services to both private and GMS patients.

It is not possible to definitively calculate the cost of universal free GP care given the changes that would be necessary to the current general practice, and the range of payments and other variables that would have to be accounted for.

Such a calculation would require a complex modelling exercise to account for a range of demographic changes, future projections of service demands, variations of GPs and practice staff numbers, and the cost of remuneration under the new model.

Additionally, the fees payable to GPs could only be determined following agreement with the IMO on the scope and content of the general practitioner service to be provided, as well as on the future of the various other supports provided to general practice. For these reasons, it is not possible to give the actual cost of extending GP care without fees to further cohorts.

However, the following recent papers have estimated the cost of universal GP care without charges: the 2018 ESRI study Universal GP care in Ireland: Potential Cost Implications, the 2019 IGEES paper Costing Framework for the Expansion of GP Care, and the 2023 ESRI report Extending Eligibility for General Practitioner Care in Ireland: Cost Implications .