Demand for GP consultations could rise by up to 30% over next 15 years as population ages and grows
Demand for consultations with a GP could increase by almost a third over the next 15 years due to a growing and ageing population, research has found.
The
Economic and Social Research Institute
(ESRI) on Wednesday published a report that projects demand for GP consultations could rise by between 23 and 30 per cent, from 19.4 million in 2023 to between 23.9 million and 25.2 million by 2040.
It projects an additional 943 to 1,211 GPs could be needed by 2040 to meet this need. There was a GP headcount of 3,928 in 2023.
However, this projected figure is based on the current GP-consultation ratio. If GPs were to undertake fewer consultations, for reasons such as higher complexity or reduced working hours, then the number required would increase accordingly, it adds.
READ MORE
Demand for consultations with general practice nurses is projected to grow from 5.7 million in 2023 to between 7.5 million and 7.8 million by 2040, an increase of between 32 and 36 per cent.
This means an additional 761 to 868 general practice nurses will be needed by 2040. The headcount in 2023 was 2,288.
According to the report, the level of demand will depend on the uptake of GP visit cards, healthy ageing and engagement with the
chronic disease treatment programme
.
A 'key component' of the
Sláintecare
health reform proposals is moving healthcare from the hospital model to more primary and community settings, the ESRI notes.
A number of policies have been introduced in recent years to achieve this, including the extension of GP visit cards to children under eight and to those below the median income, as well as the development of the chronic disease management programme.
[
Up to 6,800 more inpatient beds will be needed by 2040, says ESRI report
Opens in new window
]
'While it is anticipated that such reforms may reduce pressures on the hospital sector in the medium term, they will inevitably increase the demand for general practice services in the coming years – increases which come in addition to the significant increase in demand arising from a growing and ageing population.'
In the report, the ESRI highlights difficulties in capacity planning in the sector due to a lack of available nationally representative data on general practice.
'A number of measures have already been implemented to increase the general practice workforce, including increasing training places,' the report says. 'However, it is not known if current measures will be sufficient to meet additional demands on general practice in the coming years.'
GP shortages have been a growing concern for a number of years, particularly in rural areas, due to many of these practices being solo-run and doctors approaching retirement age.
According to the most recent figures from the
Irish Medical Council
, from last year, almost a third of GPs are aged 55 or older.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
5 hours ago
- Irish Times
Frank McNally on the Bloomsday fitness progamme (and why Virginia Woolf will never be as popular as Joyce)
An underappreciated aspect of James Joyce's literary legacy - one that might surprise the man himself - is the extent to which he encouraged healthy living, including dietary restraint and aerobic exercise. Well, he encouraged it one day a year, at least. After filing the Bloomsday 'colour' piece for this newspaper on Monday, I checked the health app on my iPhone to find it had clocked up an impressive 21,792 steps (15.4km) since morning: well above the 10,000 benchmark for the Fitbit generation. That didn't include a Dublin Bike trip from Dorset Street - scene of my unsuccessful attempts to find a mutton kidney - out to Glasnevin Cemetery and back. So I wondered in passing if Joyce scholars had ever worked out how many steps Leopold Bloom walked on 16th June 1904. But is the Pope a Catholic? Yes, of course they had. READ MORE The first person I asked, Trinity College English Professor Sam Slote, had retraced Bloom's trajectory ('some suppositions involved') and counted 22,203 steps. Which was gratifyingly close to my total, although I hadn't tried to follow the whole route. Further investigation led me to a study, conducted from Kentucky in 2012, on 'the physical fitness of Leopold Bloom'. This was in general unremarkable (the fitness, not the study). As readers of Ulysses will know, Bloom had a bit of a belly, was called 'lardface' in Barney Kiernan's pub, and at 38 – although young by today's standards – was a man of advanced middle aged in 1904, when male life expectancy was a mere 47.8 years. On the other hand, the study's author Jeff McClung calculated that given his reported height of 5ft 9½ (176.5cm) and weight of 11 stone 4 (71.8kg), Bloom had a Body Mass Index of 23.0, still exemplary in 2025. By McClung's count, the hero of Ulysses walked 8.99 miles (14.48 km) on 16th June 1904, slightly less than I did last Monday; although he went to Sandymount Strand, unlike me, and spent a lot longer wandering around the red-light district. Perhaps the standout finding, however, was that Bloom's calorific intake for the day came to a mere 1200 kcal. Or 1400, 'if he ate the second Bunbury cake that he bought to feed the birds'. Considering the 3,009 kcals he is estimated to have burned, that still left a deficit of at least 1609kcals. Sure the poor man was starving. *** A literary commemoration you heard a lot less about this week, I'm guessing, was Dalloway Day, or 'Dallowday' as some have suggested calling it. Named for Mrs Dalloway, from the 1925 book of that title by Virginia Woolf, it even had a centenary going for it this year. Yet despite describing the events of a single day in June, more than a century ago, and using the same stream-of-consciousness style Joyce pioneered, it doesn't appear to have lent itself to the sort of fancy dress re-enactment that makes Bloomsday a niche tourist attraction at home and a cultural export worldwide. Woolf had very mixed feelings about Joyce's masterpiece. She liked the start of it, up to and including the 'Hades' episode (set in Glasnevin). But overall, she looked down her perfectly formed high-society nose at both the author and his work: 'An illiterate, underbred book it seems to me: the book of a self-taught working man, & we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, & ultimately nauseating.' Still, in Mrs Dalloway, she paid a kind of homage to Ulysses. And writing style aside, even her life mirrored Joyce's. She was born a week before he was in 1882 and died (albeit a self-inflicted death) only two months after him in 1941. In an article for the Guardian back in 2016, 'It's Time We Celebrated Dallowday', one of her more devoted fans pondered why Woolf's book couldn't be commemorated in the same way Joyce's is in Dublin and around the world. One reason may be that it lacks the epic quality of Ulysses. Or perhaps, conversely, it doesn't have enough fine detail, including a specific date. It's set on a Wednesday in mid-June, while literary detectives say the year had to be in 1923. Based on the calendar for that year, this reduces possibilities to the 13th or 20th, and historic weather reports make the 13th more likely. Even so, this year's main centenary commemoration in London was held - indoors, in a library theatre - on the 18th. Maybe Woolf was too well bred to bother with such vulgar detail. Whatever the reason, she kept the timing vague: 'For it was the middle of June. The War was over, except for some like Mrs Foxcroft at the Embassy last night eating her heart out because that nice boy was killed and now the old Manor House must go to a cousin…It was June. 'The King and Queen were at the Palace. And everywhere, though it was still early, there was a beating, a stirring of galloping ponies, tapping of cricket bats; Lords, Ascot, Ranelagh, and all the rest of it…' Yes, Royal Ascot was happening in her book too. But unlike Bloom, Mrs Dalloway didn't accidentally tip the 20-1 winner of the Gold Cup. For that and other shortcomings, she will never be truly loved.
Irish Times
6 hours ago
- Irish Times
Shelbourne FC Academy soccer player awarded €17,500 over injuries sustained during training
A judge has approved a €17,500 settlement offer to a promising young soccer player who was injured just over two years ago during training with Shelbourne Football Club Academy. Barrister Michael Murray told the Circuit Civil Court on Wednesday that Ryan Darcy, now aged 14, of Beresford Gardens, Donabate, Co Dublin, had suffered two lacerations to his face while doing box jumps at the AUL League Complex Facility in Clonshaugh, Coolock, Dublin, in March 2023. Mr Murray, who appeared with Downes Solicitors, told Judge Fiona O'Sullivan that Ryan, a promising young soccer player, was 11 when he suffered facial injuries during agility exercises at football training. He said an application was made on his behalf to the Injuries Resolution Board last September and, following negotiations during mediation, an offer of €17,500 compensation to the boy, together with €8,537 special damages for costs, fees and expenses, was agreed with the Shelbourne academy. READ MORE Mr Murray said Ryan had been instructed by coaching staff to jump from a press-up position and had struck what was described as 'a negligently placed weights bar', causing him to suffer lacerations to his forehead and his right eyelid. He had been taken to the accident and emergency department of Temple Street Children's Hospital, where his injuries had been treated before his discharge into the care of his GP, Dr Peter Watson of the Donabate Clinic. Ryan's father, Robert Darcy, in written evidence, told the judge his son was later treated by Prof Sean M Carroll, an expert in micro and plastic surgery at the Beacon Consultants Private Clinic, Sandyford, Dublin. In a medical report, Prof Carroll said two scars on Ryan's face, following treatment, had recovered so well that just under a year after the incident, they were barely noticeable at conversation distance. Cold weather conditions made them noticeable. The court heard Ryan had undergone an ophthalmological review because of the proximity of the second injury to his eye. The judge said Ryan had suffered nasty injuries but had recovered extremely well. She was satisfied to approve the €17,500 offer to be lodged in court together with €8,537 in special damages to be paid out to his solicitor.
Irish Times
7 hours ago
- Irish Times
‘Nuclear option' to close nursing homes must be used, says Taoiseach
The 'nuclear option' to close nursing homes for significant failings 'has to be on the table', Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said, describing it as a 'fundamental power' of the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), the monitoring body. Mr Martin told the Dáil it was up to the Health Service Executive 'to resolve the consequential crisis that occurs when a decision to close is made. 'But we shouldn't baulk from that decision because of that.' He was responding to Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and Labour leader Ivana Bacik, who highlighted what they said was a lack of power at Hiqa. READ MORE Wednesday's debate followed the publication of Hiqa's interim report on the Emeis Ireland nursing homes – Beneavin Manor in Dublin and The Residence in Portlaoise on Tuesday night. Both featured in the recent RTÉ Investigates programme. Mr Martin said there were some 'very disturbing clear facts' in the report, citing the non-adherence to fire regulations. 'Now, to me, that's a red alarm,' he said, adding that when fundamental issues like the health and safety of residents are at stake, then closure is an option. [ Taoiseach Micheál Martin's Cork office vandalised amid 'personal threats' Opens in new window ] Ms McDonald said it was clear Emeis did not fear Hiqa. 'Quite frankly, they didn't give a toss about regulations or inspections,' she said. 'Little wonder, because Hiqa's hands are tied behind its back. They don't have the legal power to impose fines. The corporate entities that own these nursing homes are out of their reach. And Hiqa badly needs new powers'. She asked how it took an RTÉ programme to expose a scandal when the report showed there were 198 allegations of abuse at a single nursing home. Opposition smells blood in the water over RPZ changes Listen | 35:51 The Dublin Central TD said 20 years ago, 30 per cent of nursing homes were in private hands but that had since risen to 80 per cent. During testy exchanges, Mr Martin said Hiqa's powers had been broadened since 2017 and stressed that 'if there is a series of noncompliance as seems to be the case in respect of the interim report of Hiqa', the option of closure 'should be on the table'. Ms McDonald said the culture of abuse 'was obviously endemic, hard-wired into the operation of the homes, and went on for a very long time'. Ms Bacik said trust in the model of private and for-profit nursing home care 'has been shattered' since the RTÉ programme and that 'faith in the system of inspections has also been greatly damaged', requiring Government action. [ Ireland's EuroMillions winner bought their €250 million winning ticket in Munster Opens in new window ] The presentations of Hiqa's chief executive and inspectors at Wednesday morning's Oireachtas health committee had raised more questions than answers, she argued, claiming the chief inspector had been 'frankly evasive' when asked about reports of abuse in a third nursing home. Mr Martin said the power to cancel nursing home registrations existed and that it had been used in eight cases last year. 'It can and has happened,' he said.
