Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My final question relates to the time when a patients are admitted into hospital, usually through accident and emergency, triaged and a few hours go by before they are properly seen. It is a big bugbear of mine that we do not have a national digital patient record system. We have different hospital groups and paper charts but people often are so unwell when they present that they are unable properly and effectively to answer questions when being triaged. When I did my own research before the meeting, and I am no expert on sepsis, I noted that there is a repeat incidence of sepsis of approximately 40% in the adult population. Is there any record of significance or worth kept in the hospital system so that if John, Mary or anyone else has had sepsis come in through accident and emergency and going through the triage system, there is a record of that? It concerns me that, as I said many times at this committee, more is known digitally about the cars we drive, the NCT system has a depth of information on cars, and we know more about animals, but we do not know enough about patients. Humans coming through the hospital system have to go through all this series of questions when there could be critical information about a past history of sepsis that is unknown, undetected and we are playing with that time-critical factor as well. Is there any detail retained in the hospital system on that?