Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

In regard to the question of the level of risk, I am simply making the point that statistically, based on what we have seen thus far, the fact that there has been a delayed diagnosis in just two of the 38,000 cases is an indication - not a confirmation but an indicative, statistical indication - that we are dealing with relatively low risk. In regard to the remaining 23,000 that have yet to be looked at, I understand from this morning's interview with the manager of the hospital, Professor Conlon, that 10,000 of those relate to orthopaedic issues which could have emerged from fracture clinics or wherever. All of those x-rays would have been looked at by the clinician dealing with the patient. What we are talking about here is a procedure for best practice where those x-rays, having been looked at by the clinician and the patient dealt with accordingly, would have been referred to the radiology department. Best practice is that the radiologist would look at the x-ray and write a note which in most cases would confirm what was looked at by, in the case of a fracture clinic, the orthopaedic surgeon.

What has happened is that in the case of x-rays which were looked at by the clinician dealing with the patient and then referred to the radiology department, six out of 100 of those since 2005 have formed part of a backlog. That is the investigation that has to take place after we have dealt with the clinical review that is not yet completed. That is best practice for dealing with this type of issue.

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