Professor Colette Cowan:

I thank the Senator for her comments to the staff. We will pass them back and acknowledge their good work. I also thank the Senator for flying the flag for neurology in the region. UL Hospitals Group came from a very low base in neurology. There is a good service now. We now have five consultant neurologists working in the region. This is an increase from the two who were working in the service. We are delighted with that. We did an analysis of the services based on the various questions put to us about it. We have been looked after by the charitable partner, the Parkinson's Association of Ireland, with the Leben Building. We have very good relationship with it.

In our gap analysis we looked at nursing. We identified that we needed five additional neurology consultants, seven advanced nurse practitioners and five additional clinical nurse specialists to deliver the service requirements of the region. We have pitched for these numbers to be put into the neurology services. At present we have two specialist nurses. They are supported by other nursing specialists in Parkinson's, epilepsy, MS and the stroke service. We have a number of specialist and advanced nurse practitioners. It is a core focus. We have just done a strategy for neurology for the mid-west region because we can see high numbers of patients coming in who need this service. It is a work in progress. We are going in the right direction for it and we know what we need.