Health Minister Michelle O’Neill has responded to the GP–Led Care Working Group report.
Michelle O’Neill said: “I have considered the report and recommendations of the working group set up to review GP-led care services here. The report is clear – we need to take action now to address the challenges facing the service and I am pleased to accept its recommendations as signalling the direction of travel needed to ensure that everyone here continues to have access to high quality, sustainable GP-led services.
“In ‘Health and Wellbeing 2026: Delivering Together’, I was clear that primary care is the bedrock of our health and social care (HSC) system. As such, it must be central to the approach to reforming that system. The recommendations made by the working group require action by my Department, the HSC, GPs and other health professionals and I will continue to work with all parties to make the working group’s recommendations a reality.”
The Minister said considerable progress has already been made against a number of the working group’s recommendations. She said: “The working group recommended increasing the number of GP training places to 111 by 2019/20. I recently announced that we will reach that goal by 2018/19, a year ahead of the working group’s recommendation.
“I have also committed to increasing the amount of time undergraduate medical students spend in general practice, to encourage more young doctors to consider it as a career. I have set out my plans to develop multidisciplinary teams working alongside GPs in primary care to help keep people well and out of hospital.
“Investment in the Practice Based Pharmacist scheme is continuing, with over 50 pharmacists now employed by GP practices and a further 50 taking up post early next year. By March next year, every GP practice will have a named district nurse, health visitor and social worker to contact regarding their patients.”
Concluding, the Minister said: “I also want to explore in more detail the way in which we provide GP services in the future and, as a first step, I plan to consult on the role of GP Federations in the New Year.”
In October 2015, the GP-led Care Working Group was established to consider how to address the pressures facing GP-led primary care services to ensure that they are able to meet the challenge of rising demand now and into the future. Its report was published on 23 March 2016.
The working group included representation from the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS), Royal College of General Practitioners, the Northern Ireland GPC, the Royal College of Nursing and Health and Social Care Trusts.
The key issues the group focused on were building a stable GP workforce, GP training, the structures and teams to support GPs, developing a sustainable out of hours service, innovation, infrastructure improvement, quality and integration of services, population health and wellbeing and improving patient experience.
The Minister’s 10 year vision statement Health and Wellbeing 2026: Delivering Together was published 25 October 2016.
