Surveying the Sickbeds: Initial Steps towards Modelling All-Ireland Hospital Accessibility

There has been increasing interest in recent years by both civil servants and academics in both Irish jurisdictions in modelling economic and social structures across the whole island, with health services one of the key areas explored 1 . There has been some limited cross-border movement in the utilisation of health care, and a recently published preliminary study by Jamison and Butler (2007) 2 examined the existing configuration of acute hospital ser vices, identifying considerable potential for cr oss-bor der collaboration in these services, particularly in the border region