Colm Burke (Fine Gael)

As this legislation covers the next 12 months, a comprehensive review will be required to ensure we do not repeat previous mistakes. The amendments proposed could be considered over the longer term but we should leave them aside for now.

In regard to moneys owed to hospitals, the problems are not solely caused by medical consultants. My legal practice received a hospital bill for an individual who was my client 12 years ago. That money cannot now be collected but the fact that it was being pursued raises questions about hospitals' accounting systems. Further issues arise in regard to files which cannot be located, which means people are unable to determine what was done 12 months or two years ago. I was recently told about a consultant who was credited by a hospital with procedures that were never carried out because the statistics were being compiled from the information contained in discharge letters to GPs rather than drawn from the entire file.

In regard to computerisation, everyone in Denmark possesses a patient medication card which allows treatments to recorded by computer. Everyone who deals with a patient can access his or her file. In private hospitals, staff visit wards on a daily basis to ensure insurance forms have been filled out, whether by the consultant or the patient. This does not appear to happen in the public sector. The Minister for Health referred to one Dublin hospital which was accounting for public and private revenues in the same way because it had developed a mechanism which allowed it to follow up bills immediately rather than four weeks after a patient had been discharged.

Given that the measures will last for a 12 month period, I suggest that the amendments be withdrawn.