Dr. Eamon Keenan:

There have been some discussions with the Department of Health and the Chief Nursing Officer. There are legal impediments to having nurses prescribing opiate substitution treatment, OST. The other thing is that it has to be determined if there is a need for that. We have seen over the course of the pandemic that the HSE and general practitioners in the community have responded in a very significant way to induct and continue significant numbers of people on OST. We have about 11,500 people now on OST including about 600 people on buprenorphine. If a need for nurse prescribing is clearly identified, departmental and legislative changes could happen. That discussion does require the Chief Nursing Officer in the Department of Health to be involved.