Dr. Pádraig McGarry:

I have a comment on the electronic records. Part of the negotiations for the reversals of the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, was that very issue. We have agreed that summary care records of patients should be available for hospitals, outpatients or whatever. In other words, where a patient turns up at an accident and emergency department or an outpatients' department, access to the medical record - the summary records on medications and allergies - including a set amount of information is available to the doctors attending him or her. That will bring significant efficiencies. That is expected to be expanded into an electronic record whereby everybody could be able to access a certain amount of necessary and relevant information. That will bring forward a significant benefit but, as Dr. Sadlier pointed out, the hospital system needs to catch up.