Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for their attendance this morning. I wish to raise the issue of e-prescribing and the cost-benefit analysis of same. What are the potential benefits of a greater reliance on and upgrading of technology in terms of making prescribing more effective and efficient?

For instance, how do we rate at the present time in comparison with other jurisdictions in terms of our GPs, consultants, hospitals and so on? I got a report from somebody recently to the effect that we are light years behind. Everything has a waiting time. One has to wait for X-rays, for scans and for reports. This waiting time intrigues me. I have raised it in this committee on numerous occasions in the past. I presume that technology is the way around that issue. However, if the person to whom a message is given at a particular time also has a list of people waiting, it does not serve any useful purpose at all. Everybody is in a circle of waiting. Essentially I am asking how fully that issue has been studied. How do the witnesses see efficiencies in that area benefitting the patient?

On under-prescribing and over-prescribing, how much evidence exists of under-prescribing, for example, ultimately resulting in a longer duration of prescription by virtue of an inadequate prescription in the beginning? This is something that certainly has been brought to my attention in the past. As a result of trying to ensure that we do not cause the problems about which we are all worried in respect of resistance to antibiotics, there is a tendency to under-prescribe, resulting in a longer period of medication, which ultimately has the reverse effect. The patient consumes far more than they would have done if he or she had got an adequate prescription in the beginning.

The last question I want to raise relates to Versatis and the alleged excessive use of it. I take the points that have been made in respect of solving the particular problem which presents itself at a particular time. I am concerned, however, that in comparison with the UK, we seem to be way ahead in terms of prescription in that area. There has to be some reason for that. It escapes me at the moment. I do not know what it is. If it is an instant solution, why is it not an instant solution in the UK? I fully appreciate the fact that pain can be a factor that can drive people to seek the ultimate solution in the shortest possible time, but why is it that our use per capitais way ahead of that of the UK? To what is that attributable?