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553. Deputy John Deasy   asked the Minister for Health if he will provide details of the service that doctors are contracted to provide to medical card patients under the general medical scheme contract; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15728/11]
Minister of State at the Department of Health (Deputy Róisín Shortall): There is a standard form of agreement between individual General Practitioners (GPs) and the HSE for the provision of services to medical card and GP visit card holders. Such agreements are contingent [555]upon an agreement between the Minister and the Irish Medical Organisation which has itself been varied on a number of occasions over the years, by agreement between the parties.
In summary, the agreement requires GPs to provide all proper and necessary treatment of a kind usually undertaken by a GP and not requiring special skill or experience of a degree or kind which GPs cannot reasonably be expected to possess. Under the Programme for Government, it is intended to develop a new contractual framework which will be more suited to current needs and will facilitate the planned development of Primary Care Services.
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