Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

With the greatest respect, a member of my family passed away five weeks ago. When being discharged from the acute system, he said he had overcome a lot and that he had cancer a few years ago. You could see people's jaws drop because they did not know this man had the type of cancer he had.

We are not medical people; the medical people sit across from us in a hospital environment. You depend on those questions to elicit information. Someone might not think it is relevant, seven or eight years on, to say they had sepsis. Yet, it is a scientific fact that 40% of people who have had sepsis will have repeat sepsis so surely it should be a mandatory question in the triage. You will not always elicit the information unless it is explicitly asked. I am no medical expert but surely if we are upgrading the protocols every two years that should be a mandatory question for whoever is in the room.