Dr. Colm Henry:

I entirely agree with the Deputy. As medical knowledge constantly evolves we can develop scoring systems to identify patients who are more urgent. For example, in the world of endoscopy we can select out patients with particular symptoms that we know merit more urgent endoscopy and likewise with those who come through screening programmes who need more urgent endoscopy. That is not to say that among those people who do not fulfil those scoring systems within that larger of groups of routines there are not people who have more serious illness. I entirely agree that in addressing urgent cases we cannot lose sight that serious illness can happen in something that is initially styled as routine, based on the initial assessment.