Mr. Damien McCallion:

The application is aimed at the public. The initial focus will be on areas around self-care, vaccinations and guidance into the system because it can sometimes be very confusing for the public to know where to go. I do not mean that in terms of directions but it can be confusing to navigate the system and access services. There will be a particular focus on women and maternity services. The idea is that people will be able to see their appointments and get information about services. As well as getting more general information, they will be able to get information specific to them. There is a trial run with a group of patients coming up during the early part of the summer. The aim is to launch the first phase before the end of this year. There will be many more phases over time and it something we hope will develop. It will get to a point where we need to develop the data and underlying systems to support what we can give to patients and access for all of us.

In the same way we can access airlines, we will be able to access things such as hospital appointments and our own records in due course. The underpinning elements will have to happen. The plan is for the public to have it by the end of this year. A trial period will be run with a subset of patients. As I said, the initial focus is on people using maternity services, surrounded by information about self-care, access to services and other pieces as well.