Mr. Bernard Gloster:

On the LIU's, Deputy Wynne's question is very timely, I am scheduled to meet the Minister tomorrow to discuss unscheduled care both for the lead into the end of the year and into next year. One of the things he has specifically asked for is the current map of the LIUs, the hours they are open, the staffing levels they have and what they are doing in terms of the range of patients they are seeing, and what we are doing to advise the public that that option is there for them. I think we will have a very focused discussion on that tomorrow. Within next year's funding, the Minister has made funding available for urgent emergency care adaptations and additions. To be fair to him, I am sure he and I would both like that to be more, but it still is welcome that there is an addition. We will see within that how much is available for the LIU. I would expect to know that in the next two or three weeks. The one thing I will say is that I do not favour just simply saying all LIUs will be open 13 hours a day and they will all have X staff. Equally, I would want to see that they are being used and to the best degree possible. They are an improving phenomenon. As people become comfortable with them they are opting to use them more but there is a lot yet to be exploited positively in that.

Deputy Wynne and I have discussed Ennis. Where you have a model 4 hospital with no model 3, if you really want it to function well you have to support it with things like that. Recently in Limerick we introduced a service onto the road. We have a service around the country called Pathfinder, which is a particular part of the Ambulance Service again targeted at older and frail people, but we have gone a step up in Limerick now and we have introduced the Alternative pre-hospital pathway, APP car, which is like the emergency department in the home, EDITH, in St. Vincent's Hospital, it is actually a registrar doctor and an advanced paramedic on the road. The National Emergency Operation Centre, NEOC, and the Ambulance Service can deploy those two people out to calls. All of those things, added to LIUs, are what make the difference.