Dr. Edel McGinnity:

On the question about prevention campaigns and the very valid point that they often do not reach the people who most need them, we reach those people every day. We are more than trained to deal with prevention.

We spend much of our time doing that work when we are not dealing with their acute problems. Our practice nurses are fantastic at it. Had we more time for our patients, we could do much more of it. It would be targeted at the person in front of us, his or her lifestyle and what would work for him or her in terms of weight loss, stopping smoking and so on.