Major boost for general practice in Upper Bann

“It has been confirmed that the broader Craigavon area is to benefit from multidisciplinary professionals to ease the burden on local general practitioner. This is excellent news and something I have been pressing for some time. I have met with representatives of GP Federations in the Southern area and discussed the benefits MDTs could bring.

Practices will benefit across Craigavon, Portadown, Lurgan, Donaghcloney, Gilford, Dromore, Moira and Aghalee. The Armagh/Dungannon Federation area has also been successful in being amongst the five areas chosen to benefit from a £61 million investment over four years from the Transformation Fund at Stormont.

2,000 hours per week of additional capacity will be provided through more than fifty new staff across the disciplines of physiotherapists, mental health practitioners, social workers and social work assistants.

Encouragingly recruitment for senior mental health practitioners is already underway. The new teams should reduce GP workload, aid prevention and early intervention initiatives, and decrease the reliance on hospital care.

The initial funding for the first set of multidisciplinary teams came from the Confidence and Supply Agreement the DUP negotiated with the Conservative Party in Government five years ago. A Northern Ireland Audit Office report into general practice recommended that the Department of Health could not afford to sit back and not invest in more multidisciplinary teams.

Primary care has undoubtedly been under significant pressure and I trust that the public will personally soon see and feel the benefits in their local health centres”.