In news that will come as no surprise to anyone, not least those working in primary care , the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee reporting in December 2025 on access to General Practice care in Northern Ireland, described the sector as “in crisis”.
Some of the headlines under discussion in the report were:
- Access to Primary Care must be urgently improved for patients.
- There are key gaps in the Department of Health’s understanding of the Primary Care workforce. The report exposed that Department officials told the committee they did not know how many full time equivalent GPs are employed in Northern Ireland.
- The “patient’s voice” needs to be better understood.
- Patient experience needs to be better understood.
- The Department of Health must take strategic action to improve access to Primary Care.
- A workforce strategy for Primary Care is urgently needed.
- The variation in accessing GPs throughout Northern Ireland is unwarranted and must be addressed.
- The Department for Health need better oversight of patient access to GPs.
- The Department must lead on developing newmodels of service delivery for Primary Care.
- The use of locums needs to be carefully managed.
- Plans for the roll out of e-prescribing need more urgency.
- The roll out of multi-disciplinary teams in Primary Care needs urgently evaluated.
- Workforce issues.
Having surveyed more than 15,000 people in Northern Ireland online, the main area of concern identified is that patients are continually experiencing significant difficulties getting basic access to their GP. Patients are experiencing repeated unsuccessful attempts to contact their GP practice, with one patient outlining their experience of telephoning their GP 98 times to request an appointment. The report states that there is a huge demand for patient access and much of this demand is unmet.
More than half of the responses in the survey rated their experience as poor. Many responses outlined the stress and anxiety patients experience as a consequence of not being able to see their GP. Some patients opted to seek private consultations as a result of not being able to see their GP and incurred financial costs in order to receive timely care.
A loud and unanimous voice expressing public concern was noted by the Committee. The chair of the PAC, Daniel McCrossan, said the primary care sector requires urgent intervention and stabilisation. 10 recommendations for change have been made to address the issues highlighted in the report.
The report concluded that the issues identified in the report have resulted in delayed care and a reduction in public confidence in the GP system. Patients are instead attending out-of-hours services and emergency departments which in turn places considerable pressure on those services. A shift towards private healthcare has been noted.
GPs however were reported earlier in 2025 as being at their “wits end” over their workload and a lack of funding.