IMPROVING ACCESS TO PRIMARY CARE IN IRELAND: DO GP CHARGES MATTER? ESRI Research Bulletin 2009/2/1

Layte, Richard and Nolan, Anne (2009) IMPROVING ACCESS TO PRIMARY CARE IN IRELAND: DO GP CHARGES MATTER? ESRI Research Bulletin 2009/2/1. UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

Media coverage of health care in Ireland tends to focus almost exclusively on hospital services, waiting lists and patients waiting on trolleys in accident and emergency departments. Hospital care is certainly an important component of health care but research evidence shows that investment in primary care is more important for maintaining and improving population health. Routine access to primary care improves primary prevention and disease avoidance, while also allowing for early intervention and amelioration. Such activities improve population health more effectively and cost efficiently than expensive hospital intervention at later stages of illness. The potential role of primary care can only become more crucial as the Irish population ages over the next two to three decades and chronic diseases which can be managed but not cured increasingly dominate. As the most important component of primary care, GP services have a vital and increasing role to play in maintaining and improving population health, and it is this component of primary care that we focus on in this research overview.

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