Some medical paperwork an Irish GP can complete over video. Some of it needs a doctor in the room with you, and some of it is not a GP's job at all. Here is which is which, so you do not pay for a consultation that cannot give you what you came for.
If you need a driver medical report, a social welfare Certificate of Incapacity for Work, an insurance or occupational health report, a firearms medical, or any form requiring a physical examination, an online consultation cannot help you and you should not book one for that purpose. Each of those is listed below with the person or body who can actually do it.
This is the complete list — not a sample of a longer one. Each is generated by the GP during or after your consultation and lands in your account as a signed PDF.
A private medical certificate for an employer, a school, a college or an exam board, covering a stated period of absence. Your GP can also certify a return to work with restrictions — light duties only, with the restrictions written out — rather than a straight fit or unfit.
What it contains: Certificate number, issue date, your name and date of birth, the dates and duration of absence, the medical reason, any return-to-work restrictions, and the GP’s name, qualification and Medical Council registration number.
The limit: It is a private certificate. It is not the Department of Social Protection’s Certificate of Incapacity for Work — see below.
A specialty-addressed referral letter setting out the reason for referral, the relevant history and a clinical summary, so the service you are referred to has what it needs to triage you.
What it contains: Referral number, specialty, urgency, your details, the reason for referral, a clinical summary and the referring GP’s registration details.
The limit: A referral gets you into a queue; it does not create an appointment, and public waiting lists are managed by the receiving service, not by us.
A written record of the consultation — what was discussed, the assessment and the plan. Useful when you want to bring it to your own GP, a specialist, or an occupational health service so they are not starting from nothing.
What it contains: Date and type of consultation, presenting problem, assessment, plan and the treating GP’s details.
The limit: It records this consultation only. It is not a summary of your full medical history, which we do not hold.
Where a prescription is clinically appropriate, it is generated as a signed Irish prescription and transmitted to the pharmacy you nominate over Healthmail, the HSE-approved secure clinical email service.
What it contains: Your details, the medicine, dose and quantity, and the prescriber’s Medical Council registration number and signature.
The limit: Healthmail only. If your pharmacy has no @healthmail.ie address we cannot send to it, and some medicines cannot be prescribed remotely at all.
An itemised receipt for the fee you paid, which is what you need for a health-insurance claim or when claiming tax relief on medical expenses.
What it contains: Date, amount paid, service description and practice details.
The limit: We issue the receipt. Whether a claim or a relief is allowed is a matter for your insurer or Revenue, not for us.
A certificate for a college absence often has a second step attached to it: the institution's own extenuating-circumstances or deferral form, which we do not complete and which carries its own deadline. What that involves, and what the certificate does and does not settle, is covered on student sick certificates in Ireland.
You are paying for a consultation with an Irish Medical Council registered GP. If, having assessed you, the GP concludes that a certificate, a referral or a prescription is not clinically appropriate, they will not issue one, and the consultation fee still applies. Any service that guarantees you a certificate before a doctor has seen you is telling you something a doctor cannot honestly promise.
Ten things people regularly ask us for that we have to turn down. Each one names the reason and where to go instead.
The D501 requires the doctor to physically examine you and certify you against the Group 1 or Group 2 medical fitness standard, including your eyesight. That cannot be done over video, and the NDLS may additionally require a separate eyesight report (D502) completed by a registered optometrist or ophthalmologist.
Go to: A doctor on the Register of Medical Practitioners seeing you in person — usually your own GP — plus an optometrist or ophthalmologist for the eyesight report.
The same physical examination and eyesight standard applies, to a stricter threshold, and typically includes measurements such as blood pressure and vision testing that require you to be in the room.
Go to: A GP or occupational health doctor, in person.
This is a Department of Social Protection form, not a private certificate. It is completed on the Department’s own certificate and normally submitted straight to the Department through its eCert system by a doctor set up to certify for it. The private medical certificate we issue is for your employer, school or college — it will not open or extend an Illness Benefit claim.
Go to: Your own GP, who can complete and submit the Department’s certificate. The Department pays the doctor for it, so the certificate itself is free to you.
This is not issued by GPs at all. It follows an assessment by an HSE Senior Area Medical Officer against six statutory medical criteria, with an appeal route to the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal.
Go to: Apply through your local HSE health office for an assessment. Your GP and even a consultant cannot carry out this assessment.
The medical section asks a doctor to describe and certify a permanent condition and a severe, lasting restriction on your ability to walk. That is an attestation about your long-term record and mobility, which a one-off remote consultation cannot honestly make. The application also needs a Garda to identify your photograph.
Go to: Your own GP or treating medical practitioner, then the Irish Wheelchair Association or the Disabled Drivers Association of Ireland, who run the scheme.
A firearms medical report turns on your full medical history, particularly mental health history. It requires a doctor with access to your complete medical record — which we do not hold.
Go to: Your own GP, as part of the Garda firearms licensing process.
A private medical attendant’s report is a report on your medical record, requested by an insurer or employer and answered from your notes. We hold a record of your consultation with us and nothing else, so any report we wrote would be misleading by omission.
Go to: Your own GP practice, which holds your records, or the occupational health provider your employer names.
Airline medical departments assess these on examination findings and, for respiratory and cardiac conditions, sometimes on tests such as bloods or a hypoxic challenge. Those cannot be done remotely, and each airline sets its own form and deadline.
Go to: Your treating doctor or specialist, working to your specific airline’s medical form. Ask the airline first — many journeys need no clearance at all.
Pre-employment medicals, sports and diving fitness certificates, drug and alcohol testing, blood pressure or ECG certification, and vaccination records for vaccines we did not administer all depend on something being done to you in person.
Go to: A GP practice, an occupational health service or a travel clinic, in person.
Passport application forms and similar identity documents are witnessed by a member of An Garda Síochána, not by a doctor. This is an identity check, not a medical one.
Go to: Your local Garda station.
Verified against NDLS, HSE, Citizens Information, gov.ie and An Garda Síochána sources as of August 2026. Application forms, fees and eligibility criteria are set by those bodies and change — confirm on the official page before you act on anything here.
Employers and colleges generally accept a certificate from any Medical Council registered doctor, provided it identifies the doctor and the period covered. Every certificate we issue carries all of the following.
A certificate is shared with people who are not entitled to your medical history, so it is written accordingly.
Certificates and referral letters carry a QR code an employer can scan to confirm the document is genuine and current. Seeing the fuller detail requires entering your date of birth, so a certificate left on a desk does not hand your information to whoever picks it up.
Under the Sick Leave Act 2022, an employee with at least 13 weeks' continuous service is entitled to 5 days of statutory sick leave per calendar year, paid by the employer at 70% of normal daily pay up to a maximum of €110 a day. The days do not carry over into the next year.
The Act allowed for that entitlement to be raised by ministerial order, and the increase to seven days was widely reported in advance — but the order was never made, so the entitlement remains at five days. Your contract may give you a more generous company scheme; check it before you assume the statutory floor is all you get. To claim, you need a certificate from a registered medical practitioner stating that you are unable to work.
Once statutory sick pay runs out, Illness Benefit from the Department of Social Protection is the next step — and that needs the Department's own Certificate of Incapacity for Work from your GP, not a private certificate.
€35
Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm
€50
Evenings, weekends and bank holidays
One fee for the consultation. There is no separate charge for a certificate, a referral letter or a consultation summary where the GP issues one, and the price for your chosen time is shown before you pay. See full pricing.
A certificate, a referral letter or a consultation summary from an Irish Medical Council registered GP, usually the same day. From €35, with the price for your chosen time shown before you pay.
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