Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our witnesses. We are talking my language today in that I brought up the same theme approximately five years ago. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the patient. Whatever a patient’s symptoms may be, he or she must assume the services can respond in a reasonably structured way and in a reasonable time.

My first question is on the degree to which accident and emergency services can be synchronised, co-ordinated and moved ahead in order that attending patients understand they will be treated with a sense of urgency, that they will be put on a list and that it will not take forever to be dealt with. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. What is happening right now that is changing this? What has been the extent of the change over the past year with the progression of Sláintecare?