David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will come in now because I do not want to be robbed of time. I welcome Mr. Watt, Mr. Mulvany and their teams. I agree with the points Mr. Watt made about community services, including community specialist teams, community intervention teams, chronic disease management programmes and so on. Those services are an important element of Sláintecare. I do not require a response. I simply make the point that we need to get those teams fully staffed and up and running. That is an important part of taking pressure off the hospitals. We also need to put a real focus - we had a discussion about this yesterday with the Minister - on step-down, recovery and convalescence beds as part of taking pressure off acute hospitals. It is as important as putting beds into hospitals. It frees up capacity, as we know. That point was well noted in Mr. Watt's opening statement.

I will quickly raise the issue of strep A, because it is a concern. I say it as simply as that. Perhaps Dr. Henry could quickly outline what precautions are being taken by the HSE because it is an important issue in the context of public commentary at the moment. It is important that information is given.