Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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Could I come in briefly on two things we have done as regards older people that have made a big difference?

Earlier this year we completed the nationwide roll-out of mobile X-rays to people in nursing homes. It makes no difference which nursing home you are in - public, private or voluntary. We started on a pilot project but we have used it across the whole country now over 10,000 times. When a person has a fall in a nursing home, the mobile X-ray unit will be there within four hours. It has been used over 10,000 times, as I said. The nursing home will get in touch with the local GP. We have started to roll it out in the community as well, albeit we are in the very early stages of it. There is a ratio of approximately 90:10 between nursing homes and the community at the minute. We plan to do more and more of that in order to prevent people having to go to the emergency department. The other piece we are doing, again in a roll-out phase, is the National Ambulance Service pathfinder project. This project is specifically for instances where there is a 999 call and when they triage the call they realise this may be an older person who may need, for example, fluids, or just the support of the team going to the house. They may not need to have to go to the emergency department. That is starting to turn the dial as well. That is really important in rural areas.