Ms Anne O'Connor:

The Senator made a very valid point about the reasons people are conveyed from nursing homes to emergency departments. Clearly some people need to be in hospital and that is fine. However, we believe many people could be looked after in a nursing home with the right support. We have the data and we are looking at parts of the country with a higher level of admission from nursing homes into emergency departments to see if we can do more outreaching to nursing homes, for example, through the ambulance service or some of our community teams. We have integrated care teams in most areas now. We are looking to use that to minimise the number of people who go in. If people do not really need to be in hospital, it is very disruptive to them and their lives to be moved at that stage.