Mr. Paul Reid:

Some of the major health providers would have it, although not everybody has it. It was a Government decision to deploy the electronic health record, which is advancing, in Children's Health Ireland, CHI. That is the start of the process, but we do not have the electronic health record and there is no point in me saying we have it. However, there is very significant information sharing ongoing between the acute and community settings. Some examples were expressed earlier, where a 91-year-old is getting his care in a co-ordinated way between the community services and the acute services. Mr. Canavan has given some examples from the acute services as well. However, we do not have an electronic health record, and that is a very significant gap in the delivery of healthcare in Ireland.

What we have done over the past couple of years is utilise the process of doing a vaccination programme to capture accurate information on the entire population to support us in that regard and for better information at an individual level. It is the same with testing and tracing. It is to build up our knowledge and data for individuals in terms of building that capacity in an electronic health record. However, it is a gap, and a very significant one, in our health system.