Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

The terms of reference for Dr. Hayes included the GP referral issue. The HSE carried out an audit of all hospitals following the emergence of the Tallaght issue. The college of radiology was also asked to make recommendations and the HSE intends to publish that report.

There seems to be an assumption that all management and administrative staff are in some HSE office, but the vast bulk of them are at hospital level. There are around 400 people working in administration and management at Tallaght hospital alone. There may be some isolated cases involving problems with administrative support, but our hospitals generally have a fair amount of administrative support. The health service, like the rest of the public service, is still very dependent on manual supports. While technology is being put in place, we still have some years to go before we have the technology backup to allow for the efficient processing of correspondence and more complex issues like patient safety-----

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