Dr. Ronan Fawsitt:

My passion is integrated care, which represents the future of our health system; we need to learn to work together. I will conclude with a quote from Allison Williams who presented at the NQAIS launch at the RCPI last month. She is CEO of trust in Wales which is in the top three of the most deprived areas in the UK. She had a totally dysfunctional health system with ambulances queuing up at one end of a hospital and trying to get out at the other. She changed it around and did it through integration. She made this comment about population health. We need to embrace this concept which is in Sláintecare. She said:

I have 792 frequent flyers in my hospital. I know who they are. I know where they live. I know their GPs... I don't have 1,000 beds in my trust. I have 360,000 beds in my trust; they are the patients' homes. I use their beds... I don't give my GPs money; the state does that. I give my GPs what they ask for, which is diagnostics, nurses, access to my consultants and services.

That is the mindset that we need to embrace. That is what general practice can do if it is properly resourced. We can turn this around if the Government gives us the capacity to do it.