Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I apologise for not being present for part of the meeting. I saw some of the evidence on the monitor and I will have a chance to look back on the rest. If I ask a question the witnesses have already answered, they should feel free to refer me to their earlier statements.

The area of stroke and neurorehabilitation is one I am particularly interested in and one on which we have been doing research in my office for some time. In the context of the link between stroke services and neurorehabilitation strategy, can the witnesses give details on what collaboration has taken place between the HSE national steering group for the national policy and strategy for the provision of neurorehabilitation services and the national stroke programme? How are stroke services going to fit in or feature? I understand, from replies to parliamentary questions, that the neurorehabilitation committee has only spoken to the stroke lead in respect of the mapping of services and not in regard to the clinical care pathway. However, I am also conscious that the deadline is June, which seems a long way away until we realise that it is now March and we see how fast time is moving. The witnesses might comment on the level of collaboration, how it is going to improve and how stroke services are going to feature in the neurorehabilitation strategy? How is it proposed to ensure they are front and centre?

I am also looking at figures in regard to discharges to long-term care. Between 2009 and 2014, there was a 22% reduction, which is obviously a good thing, but the figures suggest this is now starting to creep back up. Will the witnesses comment on the reasons for this? More importantly, given that, as I assume, they know the reasons for this increase, what is being done to ensure that the figures start going in the right direction again? Clearly, they are not going in the right direction. It might be that it has been identified there is a geographic element to this. How is it happening and how does the HSE intend to reverse it?