Dr. Salome Mbugua:

Regarding collecting data, now it is becoming even more complicated with the GDPR. People feel that if you keep asking them and putting their data out there, it could be problematic. It is also about services becoming more aware of the community they serve. The community has become diverse. In our work on female genital mutilation, FGM, for example, we spoke with the maternity hospitals to include FGM in the maternity form. This is very simple. If services become more aware of the community they serve, let us say it is a domestic violence service, they can perhaps be able to capture that data by linking up with groups and organisations working with migrants to help them frame the questions on the forms. This would be very important. The HSE has been trying in its second national intercultural health strategy by looking into the key performance indicators every quarter. We share the information with it of how many people we have seen who are experiencing domestic violence or are victims of FGM. This is then shared widely. The way services operate allows us to capture more data. It happens by services becoming more open and understanding of the society we live in and how we can serve that society. It happens by becoming more open not only in our policies but also the forms we have and anything we use to able to capture information for the people who attend those services.