Mr. Barry O'Brien:

The Minister has clearly set out his commitment to a total re-examination of how we manage our doctors in training. It is interesting that it is a decade since the publication of the Hanly report by the national task force on medical staffing. In that time we have seen 966 additional non-consultant hospital doctors and 890 additional consultants, yet we still have fundamental challenges in how we manage such a major resource. There is no doubt that we need a new way of thinking and engagement with this critical group of people. I welcome the Minister's statement that there will be an exercise carried out in a timely fashion to challenge everyone involved in the planning and delivery of our services with this key group of staff.

Senator Burke asked a specific question on the information supplied by my Department. We are committed to giving the committee the most up-to-date information. The information was a snapshot of where we were on 21 July, which we had committed to give when I appeared before the committee last on 11 June. The Mid-Western Regional Hospital is specifically mentioned in some of the data provided. It is giving an inconsistency and we reckon we have what is approximately a 3% or 4% issue with it, but overall we maintain that we are re-balancing and we continue to increase the numbers of training posts. We are now at 81% whereas in 2007 we were at 40%.

There are fundamental decisions to be taken as to how we plan and continue to deliver this service.