The Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) are holding their annual conference this weekend in Galway with a major focus on patients with mental health needs.

A new research study, being launched at the conference, shows that patients who present to an out of hours GP, often have poor follow up with psychiatry services or their own GP afterwards.

The Annual Conference programme includes a mix of educational sessions as well as clinical and non-clinical sessions for general practitioners.

Commenting on the findings from the research, Dr Mark Murphy, Chair of Communications ICGP said: “A key issue highlighted in this report is that over one third of patients advised to attend either their GP or ED following their attendance with a mental health need at out of hours did not do so.

“The reason for this needs further investigation and the service provision for these patients needs to be examined.

“GPs are always notified of a patient attending out of hours. One of the conclusions which could be drawn from the study is the lack of dedicated integrated care facilities available to patients with a mental health need.”