Plans in place to replace 18 GPs due to retire in next five years in Cork and Kerry

Up to 18 GPs are in line to retire within the next five years out of a total of more than 400 doctors working in general practice across Cork and Kerry, a spokesperson for HSE South-West has confirmed.

The figure was disclosed in a response from a HSE South West spokesperson to The Echo.

A report from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) suggested that more than 700 GPs were due to retire across the country in the next five years, but that double that number would need to be recruited by 2028 as the population increased and the number of elderly as a proportion of the population also surged.

The ESRI report has also suggested the demand for GP consultations would increase by 23% by 2040 and that the current GP workforce was unable to keep pace.

In the ESRI report, it is projected that GP consultations would grow from 19.4m visits/calls in 2023 to between 23.9m and 25.2m by 2040. This will require up to 1,200 additional GPs by 2040, up from almost 4,000 GPs nationwide in 2023.

Recruitment of GP nurses will have to be stepped up also as between 761 and 868 additional nurses will be needed as the number of GP nurse consultations will increase from 5.7m to 7.8m by 2040.

In the HSE South West response to the query from The Echo, the spokesperson said recent enhancements to general practice training in Cork and Kerry underlined the service’s “commitment to building a resilient, well resourced GP workforce that can meet future population health needs”.

The spokesperson said that the Cork training scheme had doubled its first year intake in July of last year under what it described as an “accelerated expansion agreement” with the Irish College of GPs (ICGP).

The spokesperson said this development marked a significant step in strengthening local service capacity.

While up to 18 GPs were expected to retire over the next five years on age-related grounds, the spokesperson said workforce planning measures, including increasing training places and support for more open entry pathways to general practice, were expected to meet this demand and “ensure continued access to high quality, community-based care”.

Cork-based GP and the medical director of the ICGP, Dr Diarmuid Quinlan said the College had “rapidly expanded the number of training places for GPs in its four-year programme in recent years”.