Kieran Ryan, ICGP CEO
By Aoife Connors.
The ICGP would like to “work corroboratively” with the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI) in an effort to expand the role of pharmacists so that they can take on more functions and “free-up doctors to take on more medical matters”, ICGP Chief Executive Kieran Ryan has told Irish Medical Times.
The College was due to meet with the PSI this Thursday (October 13) as part of an opening discussion on what it referred to as “task-shifting”.
Ryan explained: “Every discipline is expanding their scope of practice, taking on new skills and developing themselves. It’s just an opening discussion on these things, given the changes we’re seeing in the environment and of course with significant case-mix expected to move from the acute sector into primary care.”
One of the main focuses of the movement from acute into primary care is looking at chronic disease management, for which he said general practice must ensure the workforce is focused on appropriate faculties and functions.
Currently, GPs looked after a “large bulk” of chronic disease management, but there was a significant case-mix in the hospital sector that “could and should” be looked after in the primary care setting, Ryan stated. However, the ICGP CEO added: “To do that with the existing workforce and resources, the capacity just isn’t there. So you have to look at the overall primary care workforce and see how do we free up capacity, and it means getting other disciplines involved in different jobs.”
The concept of ‘task-shifting’ originated from work in the developing world where health systems are struggling with a lack of doctors and nurses and other professionals, Ryan explained: “The WHO looked at how you develop the workforce in a structured way, identifying appropriate tasks, looking at the training and education requirements and the competencies.”
aoife.connors@imt.ie
About Aoife Connors
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Hooray for the ICGP, another revenue stream on the horizon… training pharmacists to do the work of GPs, with the ostensible aim of helping GPs.
“Free-up doctors to take on more medical matters.”
How kind, how considerate.
What is quite amazing here is that doctors and patients and apparently the ICGP itself actually believes the spin it applies to its business ventures.
This is a lovely example of capitalism with a caring human face.
Beware the kindness of strangers.
There seems to be a certain amount of suspicion amongst the different factions that make up the Irish system of healthcare provision. The GPs have nightmares about being commandeered in the near future into an Irish version of the NHS run in the same cack-handed fashion as the HSE; the hospital doctors feel some antipathy to GPs, who they see as being unable or unwilling to take over the primary care needs of their patients in a comprehensive way; the pharmacists are feared by GPs to be trying to undercut GPs on services such as vaccination; patients feel resentment due to their perception that all three groups are profiteering from patients.
Some form of universal healthcare similar to that in Germany, including a system of mandatory health insurance for wage-earning citizens (many of whom currently pay for ever-costlier private health insurance anyway) may be an answer, although the possibility of introducing this soon in a country that is effectively insolvent is low. It would also require that all the aforementioned factions, who currently distrust each other, are organised, coached and guided by the coxswain so as to row in unison to ensure that the boat of Irish healthcare doesn’t wander aimlessly.
Ireland has to overcome political factionalism if we are to have a better healthcare system. We have to be able to have trust in the accountability and transparency of our healthcare providers and our Government.