A new immunisation e-learning programme for general practice is being developed and will be available to all ICGP members and practice nurses in the coming weeks.

“Appropriate arrangements” in relation to phlebotomy services will be considered as part of talks on a new comprehensive GP contract.

Half of the elderly residents surveyed in a public nursing home in Ireland have said that they did not want to be resuscitated in the event of a cardiac arrest, with more women than men choosing this option, a new study has revealed.

It will be important to boost day surgery rates for specific procedures in order to improve elective access, the Minister for Health has said.

The Radiotherapy Unit at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry will be fully operational by autumn 2016, when it will be able to treat 1,150 Northern Ireland patients and 385 patients from south of the border each year.

The HSE is to ban its staff, services and divisions from taking part in campaigns funded by the alcohol industry, and it will also ask the organisations it funds to review their own policies in this area.

Fianna Fáil has published extensive proposals on health, with the party planning to expand free GP care, “ensuring that those who need it most and cannot afford it are given first priority”.

Lloyd Mudiwa summarises the RCPI Policy Group on Alcohol’s detailed Submission on the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill 2015, which urges the Government to blaze the trail in the global fight against alcoholism.

The Minister for Health has told members of the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) that he is keen to see pharmacists prescribing medicines, “perhaps starting with hospital pharmacists in particular”.

Reversal of the FEMPI cuts to GP incomes will depend on additional productivity and reforms, the Minister for Health, Dr Leo Varadkar told Gary Culliton.