1431. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister for Health if GP's are permitted to limit patient appointments to 12 minutes (details supplied). [65718/26]

GPs are private practitioners, most of whom hold contracts with the HSE for the provision of health services on its behalf, including the General Medical Services (GMS) contract for the provision of GP services to medical card and GP visit card holders.

It is understood that it is the policy of some GP practices to propose individual appointment slots that are limited to one clinical issue per appointment, allowing patients to book multiple appointments where they wish to raise more than one clinical issue, in the attempt to ensure sufficient appointment time with the patient concerned.

Please be advised that as GPs are private practitioners, neither the Department of Health nor the HSE have a role in relation to the scheduling of GP consultations.

Under the terms of the GMS contract, GPs are required to provide eligible patients with ''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". Persons who hold a medical card or a GP visit card are not subject to any co-payments or other charges in respect of such services.