Health boards agree to fund university GP training centre

The Western and North Western Health Boards have agreed to fund the department of general practice in NUI Galway.

The joint funding arrangement with the university will run for 10 years until 2014.

The agreement formalises an arrangement originally entered into when the university department was established in 1997.

As well as providing undergraduate teaching to students of NUIG, its research activities have focused on the development of rural medicine.

At a postgraduate level, the Galway department is the only one in the country to offer a programme of courses at Diploma and Masters level in primary care.