§ Mrs. Iris RobinsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many doctors are acting as locum general practitioners in Northern Ireland. [116988]
§ Mr. BrowneThere is no comprehensive list of locum General Medical Practitioners held centrally. However, a voluntary register is maintained by Central Services Agency for the purposes of circulating relevant 965W information about their profession. As at May 2003, there were 162 locum General Medical Practitioners recorded on this register.
§ Mrs. Iris RobinsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the(a) smallest and (b) greatest number of patients a general practitioner in Northern Ireland has on their caseload. [116992]
§ Mr. BrowneAs at May 2003, the smallest number of patients a general practitioner in Northern Ireland has on their caseload is 0 and the greatest number is 4,448. The general practitioners who have a caseload of 0 are either new general practitioners who have no patients registered yet or those who have retired but have come back to work in a practice and are working off another general practitioners list.
§ Mrs. Iris RobinsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many GP registrar posts there will be in Northern Ireland in(a) 2003–04, (b) 2004–05 and (c) 2005–06 for senior house officers wishing to pursue a career in general practice who have trained in various specialities at different hospitals across the Province, rather than in geographically based schemes. [116984]
§ Mr. BrowneThe number of GP Registrar posts available to doctors, whose training in various approved Senior House Officer posts was not part of the three-year training scheme, is as follows:
Number of Posts 2003–04 16 2004–05 5 2005–06 10 1 In reality there may be a small number of posts available due to doctors dropping out of the three-year scheme or taking up research posts.