GP services access: Health officials recalled to Stormont by MLAs over 'unacceptable' response
Heath officials are being recalled to Stormont over an “unacceptable” response to recommendations from an Assembly committee on access to GP services in Northern Ireland.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has slammed officials for their response to a series of recommendations it made for “urgent” improvements to the service. MLAs complained that the timeframes for delivering on the proposals were too long.
Committee chair Daniel McCrossan MLA says the department’s strategy “lacks urgency, clarity and credible delivery timelines” – and accused the Department of Health (DoH) of not appreciating the “gravity of the crisis and its impact on the public”.
The PAC will hear from Department of Health officials at its meeting this week. The recall comes after MLAs on the scrutiny body last month accused DoH of putting forward “ridiculous timeframes” on improving access to GPs – saying its response “stinks of business as usual”.
Permanent Secretary Mike Farrar – who will appear before MLAs said DoH takes the matter very seriously. “It is a priority and we continue to constructively engage with GPs and their representative bodies on the subject. In spite of an extremely challenging fiscal outlook, I look forward to providing further clarification to the PAC on the steps we are taking to help improve the situation”, he told the News Letter.
In December, a PAC report said the primary care sector was in crisis and there were serious failings in how access to GP services was provided. Following an Inquiry, the PAC published a report on the matter, setting out 10 recommendations for change.
These included a call for an urgent workforce strategy for primary care; more work to understand patient experiences; addressing the variation in access throughout Northern Ireland; better oversight of access; development of new models of service delivery; better managing the use of locums; more urgency on the roll-out of e-prescribing and urgent evaluation of the roll out of multi-disciplinary teams.
SDLP committee chair Daniel McCrossan MLA said: “In several critical areas, the projected implementation dates extend years into the future - without adequate justification or evidence of meaningful interim action”.