Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for her comprehensive reply. I am sure she will not mind me respectfully disagreeing with much of it. I cannot accept that this is best practice when it is a practice that only applies to medical card holders. If a private patient seeks psychiatric medical attention in the morning, he or she will get a prescription, go to the pharmacy, pay for the prescription and go home. If patients with medical cards seek prescriptions, they attend their mental health specialists, for wont of a better phrase, and get their prescriptions, which are useless to them for accessing medication. They must then attend their GP and endure the difficulty associated with getting appointments and waiting times in some areas. It is only then they can go to their pharmacies. All of this adds an additional layer of bureaucracy and inconvenience for medical card patients. Were the process standardised across the board, the response would have some credibility but that does not seem to be the case.

I welcome the fact that there is no extra cost but there is an extra inconvenience to patients. I value the role of the GP and the answer made a great deal of sense in that respect. We are all on the same page, in that we want to move to a situation in which mental health care is received in the community. Ideally, the GP should be situated in the same building.

This situation needs to be examined in light of the great technology that exists. We saw how Revenue could have used it to good effect in respect of pensioners recently. Computers should be able to talk to one another. The areas in question, for example, autism, are often specialties and specialists would be the best people to monitor the situation.

It risks stigmatising those on the General Medical Services scheme with mental health difficulties. There is an issue and I would appreciate it if the Minister of State relayed my comments to the Minister for Health.

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