General Practitioner

Job description

Job Title and Grade: General Practitioner, General Medical Services Scheme

Location of Post: Milltown, Co. Kerry 

Organisational Area: Kerry

Details of Service

There are approximately 387 patients on the panel. The practice is currently in receipt of RPSF (subject to normal periodic review)

The GMS Scheme provides for the provision of medical care at general practitioner level for medical card patients. Full details of the scheme are set out in the contract documentation and in circulars/regulations issued by the Department of Health and Children.

Doctors participating in the scheme do so under a formal contract for service so they are contractors rather than employees of the Health Service Executive.

 

Reporting Relationship

The post holder will be an independent contractor but will liaise with and be responsible to the Health Service Executive and the Primary Care Reimbursement Service on administrative/management issues. He/she will also be required to cooperate with service development in line with the Primary Care Strategy and other strategies agreed from time to time by the Health Service Executive.

Purpose of the Post 

The purpose of the job is to provide quality general practitioner medical services to eligible patients who have chosen you as their doctor of choice or who have been assigned to you in accordance with the operational arrangements for the GMS Scheme.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

The general practitioner appointed to this post will be responsible for the provision to eligible persons, on behalf of the Health Service Executive, all proper and necessary treatment of a kind usually undertaken by a general practitioner and not requiring special skill or experience of a degree or kind which general practitioners cannot reasonably be expected to possess. This will include such preventive and developmental services as are currently provided or may be developed.

The services to be provided under the agreement should be made available either, as the circumstances may require, at the medical practitioner's surgery or at the person's home or at another place approved by the Health Service Executive within the area of practice.

The medical practitioner shall:

•Accept clinical responsibility for persons on his/her list who need medical treatment and treat them or, when the clinical condition is such that it is appropriate to transfer them to appropriate consultant care, do so and accept clinical responsibility for them on becoming aware of their discharge from consultant care.

•Use the most efficient and economic forms of treatment or care consistent with the needs of his/her patients.

•Ensure that no discrimination or differentiation is exercised as between the treatment of eligible and private patients within the practice and take reasonable steps to ensure that no such discrimination is perceived.

•Furnish to a person whom he/she has examined and for whom he/she is obliged to provide services (or, in the case of a child, to his/her parent) a certificate in relation to any illness noticed during the examination which is reasonably required by him/her or by the parent as the case may be. Such examinations as the doctor may carry out on a patient prior to the issue to him of first and final Social Welfare certificates are comprehended by the capitation payments. Payment under this contract is not made in respect of certain other certificates required, e.g. under the Social Welfare Acts or for the purposes of insurance or assurance policies or for the issue of driving licenses.

•Utilise the appropriate support services including community and diagnostic services when available.

•Keep himself / herself informed of developments in clinical care relevant to general practice.

•Reside in his/her area of practice or within reasonable access to it.

The medical practitioner shall co-operate, where possible, in advising the Health Service Executive of known alterations to his list of patients.

The Medical Practitioner shall not change his/her centre of practice or open additional centres of practice without prior approval from the HSE.

Company Description

The HSE is the largest employer in Ireland, with over 100,000 employees. More than 67,000 are direct employees, the remainder are employed by agencies funded by the HSE. The HSE aims to be an Employer of Choice, and offers a wide range of challenging career opportunities that enable our staff to make an important contribution to the health services, to public service and to the lives of everyone living in Ireland.