Mr. Liam Woods:

To finish, Chairman, there was a further question about the Smithfield local injuries unit from Deputy O'Connell, which is associated with the Mater Hospital. The Deputy correctly said it is very popular and is growing its volumes. In fact, the level of referrals now to local injury units nationally is 94,000 per year, so there is a strong growth in attendances at those units. That is true of Gurranabraher in Cork, where there is a unit on the hill. People do not know about this so we ran a social media campaign for local injury units last winter, which was very successful. It brought many patients to the units. We will continue to do that. On the issue of culture and awareness, the Deputy is right that many people still believe they need to go to the Mater Hospital rather than to the local injuries unit but that is changing and GPs have responded very positively to the extension of hours in Smithfield. Regarding the notion that the Mater Hospital ED is taking a specific additional burden of work arising from the work of the local injuries unit, the EDs in the area are all growing, including that of the Mater Hospital. There is no specific evidence that would say it is growing disproportionately more. As there are local injuries units of various types associated with St. James's Hospital, Tallaght Hospital and others, that facility is available elsewhere although the Smithfield one is a fine facility.

The Deputy asked if the HSE or the hospitals overbook outpatients. It is true that part of the booking practice is an awareness that people will not show up but there are also opportunities for us to use the available space more productively. However, the statement is correct. The Deputy referred to the roll-out of texting and said that somebody could do that over a weekend. The HSE must be cautious in terms of our general data protection regulation, GDPR, responsibilities and general data protection and be sensitive to consent issues with patients but within that context, we wish to use electronic means. We would like to have an electronic health record online for a patient, so clearly that is something we want to achieve.