Ms Breda Crehan-Roche:

I will give an example because that is a good way of explaining something. When we look at Sláintecare in action, we are trying to ensure that people receive care as close to their home as possible to prevent them having to go into hospital and emergency departments. The programme is around enhanced community care, which covers three chronic diseases - respiratory, cardiac and diabetes. The integrated care programme for older persons, ICPOP, is about enabling older people to live within their communities. I will give an example. A gentleman aged 90 from east Galway, whose name is Ambrose, was not feeling well and was brought to a hospital just outside our region, which is Galway-Mayo-Roscommon. He was sent to Tullamore. The hospital discharged him because he needed medication and different follow up. He was then seen by a consultant geriatrician. He had a fall a few months later. She met him in University Hospital Galway and out of that, he did not go into hospital but went to one of our community nursing units in Loughrea and got some respite, enhanced physiotherapy, occupational therapy and various clinical supports. He was then discharged home, now has some home support and the nurses in the community look after him. It is working really well. We work very closely with the Saolta group in our community care centres as well. Tomorrow we have what is called the joint enhanced community care governance group, which is co-chaired by Mr. Canavan and me. There are various people on that, including clinicians. We find out how we are doing regarding care. For example, in April alone, the frailty at the front door programme saw 157 people. We saved 375 bed days in April alone. This stopped all those beds being taken up and these people were looked after in the community so it is working really well.