Dr. Michael Shannon:

I thank the Chairman, Senators, Deputies and colleagues from the Institute of Community Health Nursing. In the context of the record public health nurses keep, I am in this position two years and it has struck me on visits to public health nursing services throughout the country that there is some uniformity in the record system and that there is a variety which has been developed locally to meet local needs. Over the past year, we have commissioned, in partnership with the Institute of Community Health Nursing, a pen drive which is working in Dublin north and which is a universal system to gather data around records and information for public health nursing that will feed into the performance indicators of the HSE but, importantly, for patient care and client outcomes and, specifically, for indicators for the public health nursing service itself. We have just evaluated that very successfully and, in consultation with Mr. John Hennessy in his new role, we will look to roll that out.

Senator Crown asked for figures, etc. The total public health nursing service, which excludes the student public health nurses, is 4.51 per 10,000 of population. He asked how it compares internationally. My colleague, Ms Mary O'Dowd, made the very valuable point that the public health nursing model here - I am very proud of the public health nursing community in this country - is very different to that in other countries, including the UK and Sweden, so it is very difficult to make comparisons because the actual function and role of public health nursing in Ireland is somewhat different from other models internationally.