Radical changes to the State's primary healthcare system announced yesterday focus on the creation of 600 primary care teams across the State in the next 10 years. The teams will have the potential to deliver much of the care currently provided by specialist services.
Details of the changes were announced as part of the Government's overall health strategy.
The teams will deliver a range of healthcare services from one site to populations ranging from 3,000 to 7,000. Members of the team will include family doctors, midwives, social workers, physiotherapists and other healthcare professionals.
A new strategy, Primary Care - a New Direction, published yesterday, outlines the changes but says the details of how they will be implemented have yet to be worked out.
"The timetable is contingent on availability of resources, partnership with the service providers and the learning derived from the implementation projects," it said.
The number of professionals on each primary care team will depend on its location and the size of population it serves. The strategy envisages between 600 and 1,000 teams being required throughout the State but with only two-thirds of them being set up within the next decade. Each will have administrative support.
Between 40 and 60 teams will be put in place within three to five years, at a cost of about £2 million each.
"Assuming two-thirds implementation (400-600 teams) of the model over the next 10 years, approximately an additional 500 GPs and 2,000 nurses/midwives will be required, with similar large increases in health and social care professionals, administrative staff, home helps and healthcare assistants.
"At the end of 10 years, the staffing costs of implementation will entail an approximate overall investment of £484 million per annum," the strategy said.
The location of teams will be determined by a national primary care task force which will be established in January.
Health boards will have assessed the need for teams in their regions by the end of 2002. To support the plan, there will be considerable investment in information technology (£60,000 start-up per team) and electronic patient records will be introduced.
All individuals will be encouraged to enrol with one primary care team and individuals will be able to self-refer to any given member of the primary care team.
A wider network of health professionals will also be engaged to work with a number of primary care teams. These professionals will include dentists, chiropodists and psychologists.
Primary care teams will work to ensure "widespread uptake of initiatives such as screening, immunisation and early intervention" and will have direct access to hospital-based diagnostic services.
"Access to primary care services, particularly out of hours, will be improved for all, following the introduction of this new model of primary care," the strategy said. "This fundamental change will not be easily achieved . . . consultation with all the relevant stakeholders will be required on the way forward."
The full text of the Primary Care Strategy can be read on the Irish Times website at ireland.com