Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Senator Conway-Walsh referred to the National Health Service, NHS, and the provision of free GP care. The witnesses, with their experience, might outline the current waiting times to see a GP in the UK. I worked in the NHS about 15 years ago. The system has changed completely, to my mind. I was there at the time of A Vision for Change. I am led to believe that people can be waiting up to three weeks for a standard GP appointment. A private healthcare system is also emerging in the UK that was never there before. NHS consultants are doing what consultants do here to some extent, namely, working in the NHS and then channelling some patients into their private facilities.

Although many people seem to hail the NHS as the great bastion of primary integrated healthcare, it is not all as shiny and rosy as people like to make it out. I will comment on the cost-benefit analysis. Perhaps the witnesses, who seem to know a lot about the cost of things, can respond. The cost of Versatis patches for one year here was going to be €36 million. That was the same cost projected for the whole UK population for the same time. If the witnesses have a calculator, they might perhaps tell us how many things we could have bought for that €36 million. How many beds could we have provided? Economic decisions have to be made in health. I absolutely recognise the value many patients found with those patches, but it was not just the GMS that was stopped, private patients were stopped as well. It is being brought up here, week in, week out by Senator Conway-Walsh.