Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The delegates are welcome and I thank them for their work.

My first question is about the numbers. The main table shows the numbers of GPs, acute beds, ICU beds, physios and everything else, but it is not a full systems review. It is only a review of acute services and excludes mental health and palliative care services. My understanding is that within primary community care services the review focuses on the elderly. I will ask my first question and leave it at that for now. How incomplete is the picture the table provides? I do not mean that as a criticism of the work done. For example, if the capacity review shows that, in the reform scenario, we need 2,590 additional acute beds, would the total number of acute beds be likely to increase by much were the Department to commission the PA Consulting Group to undertake a full system review? Similarly, there is a significant number of additional GPs, physiotherapists, allied health professionals and practice nurses, but my concern is that, while the acute review might be reasonably comprehensive, the primary care services review is limited because it is focused on elderly persons. Will the delegates give us a sense of how much of the picture we are seeing? Based on their experience of this sort of analysis abroad, is it likely that the total projected numbers of GPs, practice nurses and so on would be significantly higher than what we are seeing if their group was to carry out a full system review of community, primary and social care services?