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IRELAND

Health Care

There are far reaching changes proposed for the structure and management of the Health services, by the Government. The extent and implications of these changes are not clear at this time. I attended a meeting of our College (ICGP) where we fashioned a position paper on how we see GP training evolving in the future. More of this in later reports.

Basic Medical Education

There are four University medical schools and one independent medical school; all have undergraduate departments of General Practice. There are about 660 graduates per year about 330 of them are foreign graduates (mainly non-EU graduates).

It is proposed that the entry will increase to 800 and a cap on non-EU entry, further these additional places will be for graduate entry. A new graduate entry medical school will be sited in Limerick and that the existing schools take in more graduate students.

Postgraduate specialist training

The number of GP trainees has expanded from 84 to 98 this year. It is hoped to expand the intake to 150 over the next few years. This will need a radical revision of how training is organised! The changes will be dependent on the re structuring of the Health services.

For the last ten years places on the training schemes are highly prized and training schemes have attracted the highest calibre of graduate. Following a national conference held to discuss the expansion of numbers in training and the length of training, all of the schemes are now extending training to four years. The additional year will be spent in the Community, i.e. in general practice. The official policy of the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) is to extend training to five years; that is two years rotating through hospital specialist training posts and then three years in supervised training in General Practice.

Continuing Medical Education

There is an active network of local ICGP faculties each with one or more CME groups, which are supported by CME tutors. These CME tutors are remunerated by the ICGP for their work in supporting these groups. Quality assurance programmes have been introduced by the Medical Council for each of the different craft groups within the profession.