Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

I envisage a very strong role for nurses in the roll-out of health reforms. They will be critical to the development of primary care. As regards chronic disease management in the community, bearing in mind that we want to see a considerable shift in activity from the hospitals to the community, nurses will be the key professionals involved in delivery. I want far more nurses involved in prescribing. They have a critical role to play in primary care.

With regard to people in nursing homes, there is a real difficulty. As matters stand, the GP is the gatekeeper to GMS services, doctor services, practice nurse services and drugs covered under the GMS. It would be extremely complex to bring about an arrangement whereby a GP responsible for the medical care of a patient in a private nursing home would also have some other professional with prescribing rights working for that patient.