Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If we are going to get this right and we have to get it right, we have to be able to identify exactly the kind of projects the Deputy has referenced. We have to replicate and scale them. All over the HSE, brilliant initiatives are happening. Tallaght hospital has been running advanced nurse practitioner-led community teams in various disciplines such as neurology and urology and the results are spectacular. I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure the Sligo model the Deputy mentioned is referenced in the programme for Government. It is an example I brought into those talks having met opticians and ophthalmologists in Wicklow who raised this with me. We have to do things differently. We have to bring care closer to the patient. When we see examples of excellence such as those the Deputy referenced, we will have to get better at replicating and rolling them out across the system.

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