Investment needed to provide space for more GPs, says Cork medical director

Ireland may soon have too many GPs and not enough places for them to practice, a Cork doctor has warned

New research on the medical workforce in Ireland in 2025, compiled by the Medical Council, found that there were 2,530 doctors including 617 GPs working in Cork last year, an increase from 2,382 and 597 in 2024.

Nationally, the report found that a quarter of doctors experienced difficulties providing patients with sufficient levels of care.

GPs reported the highest rate of difficulty providing safe patient care of any group of doctors, with 34.7% experiencing barriers at least weekly, such as bureaucracy and administration, workload, and difficulty accessing specialist opinion. 

More than 10% of GPs worked more than 48 hours a week, and a fifth of the GP workforce is approaching typical retirement age, the report found.

Medical director of Medhub Clinic in Cork and chief medical officer of Bartra GP in Dublin Dr Nick Flynn, said: “I’ve been practising for 25 years and the last 15 we’ve been flagging a workforce crisis that’s coming because of GP retirements... But the increase in training places is going to go a long way towards solving it — the next crisis is infrastructure.”

Dr Flynn said that for patients: “Access to care currently remains challenging, although I think it will likely improve.” This due an increase in the number of GPs being trained.

Hundreds of new GPs

He said there will be hundreds of new GPs graduating in the coming years, with 350 to 400 doctors in training, while a parallel programme for internationally trained doctors should see 150 to 200 graduates.

“The HSE have been very strategic in how they’ve approached increasing those training numbers through both pathways,” Dr Flynn said.

“We may, for a short while, run at a standstill as the numbers retiring and the numbers graduating may match for a few years.

“However, soon the number of new GPs will overtake those outgoing.

“The challenge for the HSE then is the infrastructure — we’re going to go from a situation where we don’t have enough GPs to where we have more GPs but I don’t see them having the surgery rooms to practice from."

He said GPs will not be able to treat as many patients as they used to, as the population getting older means they have more diseases simultaneously making care more complex.

Not enough surgeries

He added that primary care centres being currently built don’t have enough surgeries to accommodate the increased number of GPs needed.

“The HSE have been good at addressing the problem of where are the GPs going to come from — the next problem is where are the GPs going to practice,” said Dr Flynn.

“In four to five years, lots of GPs will have qualified but not have the physical infrastructure to practice from — that won’t be there unless there is some kind of strategic investment plan.

“We need to look at who is going to pay for the infrastructure. If the HSE is going to do it they need to put the hand in the pocket and build more primary care centres. If GPs are going to do it as small to medium enterprises, they will require some kind of tax incentive.”