The Nurse Practitioner Role in Ireland

The Republic of Ireland is an island located in north-western Europe in the North Atlantic Ocean, west of the island of Great Britain. Ireland has a public healthcare system, run by the government-funded Health Service Executive (HSE), alongside private care settings. The current Irish system is primarily a tax-financed public system but with significant out-of-pocket spending, mainly in primary care, and with supplementary health insurance for private hospital coverage, with a 45% rate of public participation [1]. Another 14% comes from private health insurance, while out-of-pocket expenditure makes up the remaining 12% [1].