Update: HSE's guidance on pet names is 'off-the-wall stuff', says consultant

The Irish Patients Association says it’s important that hospital staff get the right balance between being over familiar and clinical.

Update - 12.45pm: A Consultant Ophthalmologist thinks the HSE has bigger fish to fry rather than focussing on how employees refer to patients.

Michael O'Keefe, a consultant at the Mater Hospital in Dublin, was referring to new guidelines encouraging staff to think carefully about how they address patients, so that conversations with patients are "person-centred", for example by including their first names rather than 'pet names'.