GENERAL PRACTITIONERS' CONFERENCETHE ANNUAL meeting of the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), which takes place in Galway this weekend, is expected to adopt a new strategy plan for general practice in the Republic, writes Dr Muiris Houston.
A key element of the draft five-year plan will be a drive to involve patients and advocacy groups in the activities of the ICGP, the representative body for family doctors. Patient advocacy groups such as the Asthma Society and the Irish Heart Foundation will be invited to contribute to ICGP policy development through membership of college working groups.
The meeting will also focus on the worsening manpower crisis in the speciality of general practice, which is already affecting the choice-of-doctor options available to patients.
Some 350 GPs are expected to retire every year for the next five years at a time when the HSE has decided not to fund a previously agreed expansion of GP training in the State. There is also concern among family doctors about the commercialisation of general practice and the prospect of for-profit polyclinics being established here.
The meeting will also see the publication of a policy document on prostate cancer screening.
Although there is no scientific evidence to support a population screening programme for the disease, the document is expected to weigh up the evidence for a targeted screening programme at a time of high public demand for prostate cancer testing.
Among the motions to be debated tomorrow is one calling on the ICGP to lobby Government for a ban on all forms of alcohol advertising. The conference will also be addressed by Prof Tom Keane, director of the National Cancer Control Programme, who will update doctors on his plans to establish eight so-called centres of excellence for cancer care in the Republic.