Professor Eilis McGovern:

To answer the question about the initiative with the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan, it is important to note this was a pilot project. This is the first year in which we have done this and there is a learning aspect to it. While we targeted initially 60 doctors in three specialties, as we stated previously, we were not going to compromise on the standards and the safety of these doctors. We set the standards high and we made this point to our own training bodies from the point of view of selection. The Medical Council also has a role in respect of patient safety. The difficulty in recruiting sufficient doctors for anaesthesia was related to their experience, in that the issue pertained to the minimum experience we required for doctors to work in the Irish health system. On the contrary, we got excellent applicants for the surgery programme and all 20 posts were filled, although one subsequently was withdrawn because the person did not have the Medical Council requirements. Next year, we will have learned from this experience and if we decide to have a programme such as this for 2014, we will apply what we have learned, at both the Pakistan end and the HSE and Medical Council end, to ensure we get the right doctors. The important thing was not to compromise on the safety profile of the doctors who were coming to work here.