Ms Barbra Dalton:

There is some data being collected and Professor McAdam has outlined the structured ones. The data that is being collected is generally done in quite an ad hoc way. From the Irish Cardiac Society’s perspective, when we try to submit data to the wider EU surveys, it can end up looking like we are not participating or active in areas where we actually are, which is a real shame as there are fantastic things happening in cardiology and our trainees are the best in the world. We are not even getting a chance to show our figures in that regard. I can say from a cardiac side of things it is a scramble to find the information for that. There is the device side of things also; how many pacemakers or ICDs? We struggle to collect that data. The Senator is correct in that there are some structured systems in place to collect data but as Professor McAdam said, that is only for a certain amount and what we really need is to take that wide open. If we have the data and can put it in, then the comparisons with us across Europe and even across the Border become much clearer. That supports the arguments we are trying to make much better.