Mr. Tony Canavan:

There is no question that this type of approach will have an impact on the length of time people wait. In our hospital systems, people wait in emergency departments. There are people waiting in emergency departments right now to be admitted to hospital. I believe the enhanced community care programme that we are rolling out, along with the chronic disease management programme in communities and the regionalisation about which the Deputy has been asking, will directly impact on both the numbers of people waiting in emergency departments and the length of time they have to wait to be admitted. Given the growth in activity in hospitals and the numbers of people attending, that is really important because this is not a fixed target; it is a growing one. We will have to be better able to deal with these capacity issues as we go forward. I believe the regional health areas give us a fighting chance of that.

The Deputy specifically asked about waiting lists for elective procedures. I have no doubt that this approach will streamline our approach to the delivery of elective care. It does require capacity both on the community side and the hospital side to be able to deliver on that, but regionalisation will allow us to consider the needs of our specific populations and direct the resources that are available either on the community side or the hospital side towards those services in order to ensure people are processed through the system quickly or, perhaps, processed through alternative sources of care, which are important. The regional health areas make that happen.