GPs and primary care teams

Sir, – I read with dismay the recent HEALTHplus article “GPs could be forced to work in primary care teams” (June 5th). For …

Sir, – I read with dismay the recent HEALTHplus article “GPs could be forced to work in primary care teams” (June 5th). For several years now, the HSE has been hell-bent on gaining control of Irish general practice. The creation of primary care teams would effectively mean that GPs would be forced to spend hours every week attending meetings with administrators talking about patients, instead of treating them. This is given the innocuous title of “teamwork”, falsely implying that bureaucrats have an equally important role to play as doctors in the care of sick people.

In this country, the vast majority of our fellow citizens can obtain a routine appointment with a GP within one to two days. This compares very favourably with the NHS in Britain, a fact almost never acknowledged in the national press.

Out-of-hours urgent appointments are also available throughout much of Ireland. Despite constant anti-medical media propaganda, the level of patient satisfaction with GPs is consistently high.

I believe the reason for this is simple. Primary care remains the only part of our health system that the HSE has largely no control over. As a result, it has been unable to bring its unique brand of inefficiency and unaccountability to this service.

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Naturally, in those areas where the HSE has been involved, such as the processing of medical card applications, it has once again demonstrated its capacity for breathtaking incompetence.

Given that our Minister for Health has previously described the HSE as “unfit for purpose”, it truly beggars belief that he should support any increased involvement of that dysfunctional institution in the running of Irish general practice.

It is to be hoped there is sufficient leadership in our profession to resist these ill-conceived and potentially disastrous proposals. Time will tell. – Yours, etc,

Dr RUAIRI HANLEY,

Kilskyre,

Kells,

Co Meath.