A thousand new GPs will be required during the life of the current Government just to maintain current patient ratios with substantial additional investment needed to address ongoing shortages, the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) has said.
The number of training places available to doctors wanting to become GPs has almost doubled in recent years to 350 a year and an initiative to recruit overseas GPs, then provide additional training, will produce its first 20 graduates next month.
Many, however, are leaving to country to start their careers abroad or struggling to establish practices here given the high start-up costs. Problems also persist with geographical spread, as a disproportionate number of older doctors retire in rural areas and younger ones gravitate towards larger towns and cities.
In June, the ESRI projected the number of GPs would need to grow by almost a quarter over the next 15 years due to population growth. However, ICGP medical director Dr Diarmuid Quinlan says the more immediate challenge is to maintain patient ratios in the next few years as hundreds of GPs retire, and the population both ages and expands.
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With about 600 retirements expected and an additional 300 GPs required to keep pace with population growth, about 1,000 new GPs are required to maintain the status quo. Dr Quinlan says the existing 4,500 total is about 1,500 short of what is required to meet patient needs.
Speaking at the inauguration of the new ICGP headquarters in Dublin, Dr Quinlan said: “On the one hand we have a growing population, but then we also have an ageing one. It’s estimated we will have a million over the age of 65 by 2030, and these people need very substantial GP care because of increasing issues with frailty, fractures and dementia.
“That is the single biggest challenge our health service is currently facing, managing the healthcare needs of people aged 65 and over in the next five years.”
The organisation hopes to further expand its training programme to 450 GPs a year. Applications for the existing places have increased sixfold to just over 2,000, suggesting an appetite for the specialty, but the ICGP says there are problems with capacity that need to be addressed, including a shortage of training places in hospitals.
Total public spending on health has, Dr Quinlan acknowledged, grown substantially, with progress made in many key areas. There have been some “phenomenally successful programmes”, but there are still huge tranches of work at GP level that are under-resourced, including mental health.
Speaking at the event, Prof Mary Horgan, chief medical officer at the Department of Health, said there had been a “huge increase” in the number of training places, with 1,300 now in the system. She said that with the increased involvement of advanced nurses and other such roles, she believed there would be enough GPs to address the need in the coming years.
