Mr. Paul Reid:

This was asked earlier. In terms of its core principles, the first is that there is an integrated service. As Ms Crehan-Roche stated, it is that patients or users are getting care they need for their requirements closer to their home. If they need different pathways, such as needing further care elsewhere having gone to a primary care centre, it is a more seamless process. It is a handover rather than a hand-off experience for the patient. There are many issues that have to be addressed to solve that but those are the core principles.

What will make the service better will be our continued investment in the community service to support acute services. That does not mean there will not be investment in acute services. We have to continue to increase bed capacity and put new pathways in emergency departments. The improvement will relate to the enhancement of services such as primary care centres, for example. Last week, I visited primary care centres with the teams of Ms Crehan-Roche and Mr. Canavan. I saw an acute wing within a primary care centre where radiology services were taking place, with specialists from the acute services. That was happening within the primary care centre. Some of the referrals from that process happen within the primary care centre, such as in the context of speech and language therapists, occupational therapists or rehabilitation. It is about that integrated service with fewer hand-offs, as well as an integrated management structure to ensure that is the way we operate.