Professor Colette Cowan:

With our local and national communications teams, we are consistently referring to the local injuries units on our Twitter feed. When I speak to members of the public about this, they tell me they do not read those things until they need them and that when they do suffer an injury, they forget they could go to units in Nenagh, Ennis or wherever. We find that sportspeople do use the local injury units a great deal. They wait until the next morning. There is, however, a consistent message in this regard. This winter, we are putting a focus on it with the national communications team to tell people more about this option. Some roadshows may be needed to inform the public what it is we do in this regard and why, and to explain in more detail why the system is the way it is and what is available to them beyond a busy accident and emergency department.