Ms Magdalen Rogers:

I thank Deputy Canney for attending the launch of our Patients Deserve Better campaign on Tuesday. We are highlighting the shortage of neurology nurses. Sometimes there is confusion about what is neurology and what is neurorehabilitation. They are two sides of the same coin in that there is a lack of services at all stages of the continuum, as Dr. Pender said. We find that neurology is under pressure because there are no neurorehabilitation services.

The same problems and issues that arise with long-term disability are coming back to knock on the door of neurology because the services do not exist in the community. For patients such as the one from which the committee heard on Tuesday, it does not matter whether the gaps are in neurology or neurorehabilitation. At the end of the day, these patients do not have the services they need.

In response to the Deputy's question on why the strategy has not been implemented, from our side in the neurological alliance, sitting on that steering group and not having it meet is a reason. As I said, it has met only twice since the framework was launched in 2019; it did not meet at all in 2021. For us, that has to be seen as a lack of will and a lack of commitment. I understand there have been issues with staffing changes in the HSE and that has been outlined to us. We have been told by the HSE that there is a commitment to the strategy group meeting in 2022. It is critical that meeting happens because there has been effectively no progress on this implementation plan, and we cannot put that down to Covid. It was happening before Covid. We have had a decade to implement the strategy. It is not just the three-year implementation plan; the strategy was published ten years ago this year and we have seen a lack of implementation and a lack of support for it. To answer the Deputy's question, it has to be seen as a lack of commitment and a lack of will at this stage.