A GPs' co-operative practice in Carlow town which provides an out-of-hours service is to be expanded to include all GPs in Co Kilkenny and south Tipperary.
Some 26 doctors in Co Carlow have been operating the Caredoc scheme since June last year. Now, Dr Sean McGuire, chairman of Caredoc, has announced that all the GPs in Kilkenny and south Tipperary are to join.
More than 100 doctors in these counties will be part of the scheme by the end of the year. Over the past year, Caredoc has handled some 20,000 calls at its centre in Carlow District Hospital.
It was set up as a pilot scheme and is funded by the Department of Health.
The centre of the service will remain in Carlow while new units will be established in the two new centres.
Dr McGuire said a questionnaire of patients had shown a 96 per cent satisfaction rating.
He said Caredoc normally catered for 350 calls a week, but over a 10-day period last Christmas, during a flu outbreak, that figure had risen to 2,000.