Making the Border disappear - at least for people who need to see a doctor ur- gently late at night - is the aim of a pilot project to start later this year.
A study to be published next week shows that a total of 70,000 people along the length of the Border find their closest out-of-hours GP service is located in the opposite jurisdiction. The study also found that about 70 per cent of these people live in isolated regions which can be classified as socially deprived.
The study, which examines all the obstacles to ignoring the Border, was commissioned by Co-operation And Working Together (CAWT), a cross-Border organisation of the four health boards and seven health trusts.
Mr Paul Robinson, director-general of CAWT and chief executive of the North Eastern Health Board, said the GP out-of-hours study had the potential to make a huge difference to people's lives.
Two areas with populations of about 13,000 have been chosen for the pilot project, Keady-Castleblayney and Inishowen-Derry. Negotiations have been continuing with GP co-ops which currently run the out-of-hours service on both sides of the Border. For example, NEdoc, which covers the North Eastern Health Board area in the Republic, operates from four main and 12 outlying centres and has 130 doctors.
Under the new system people will still ring the GP co-op in their own jurisdiction, but if they need to actually see a doctor they will have the choice of going to the centre closest to them. It has been found that about 40 per cent of all calls can be dealt with by phone.
It is hoped the scheme will be extended to all Border areas. The study, which was carried out jointly by NUI Galway and the University of Ulster, and will be published in Enniskillen next Thursday, found that ultimately this would be feasible.
Obvious difficulties are highlighted, such as the fact that up to 70 per cent of patients pay to see a GP in the Republic, but nobody in the North does. Mr Robinson said a funding mechanism for the pilot project would be negotiated.
Other issues to be addressed include insurance cover, dual registration and follow-up drug prescriptions. In the long term the issue of doctors crossing the Border to treat patients, as well as the proposed system of patients travelling, will also be addressed.
A second study to be announced by CAWT in Enniskillen gives a health profile of the population of the entire region. The area covered has a population of about one million, or one-fifth of the total on the island, and accounts for 25 per cent of the total land area.
One of the most startling findings is that the number of road accidents in the region is 33 per cent higher than elsewhere.
The profile also highlights a changing balance in the population, with the number of people aged 65-plus expected to rise by 17 per cent by 2011. This leaves the region with a higher dependency ratio than either the Republic or Northern Ireland. Mr Robinson said the findings would be used to target investment and plan services.