Dr. Jerome Coffey:

I have followed the work of the committee over the past year and I met Professor Tom Keane before he made his submission. It was a very clear summary of what is happening in cancer services. With regard to the here and now, it is important to say that the cancer registry has a statutory basis. It has an obligation to retrieve cancer data from all hospitals whether they are publicly or privately funded. It has all the data it needs. There is a potential or need to modernise or apply a change. It is for the Department and its committee to consider whether we make cancer a notifiable disease so it is the responsibility of the hospital to report to the registry instead of the registry sending staff out to retrieve cancer health files from hospitals. To a large degree, that may not be too much of an issue if we get the technology right and export it automatically to the registry. It is the data collection for the registry. It will get easier as time goes by. It will have to because the volume of data will massively increase over the coming years.

With regard to the public-private issue, what is important is that the outcomes are the best possible for all citizens. Whether it is provided publicly or by a privately-funded facility, if they are applying high standards and if their reporting outcomes show that is the case, then the patient does well.