Mr. Jim Breslin:

In a reformed system where we consolidate roles, there would be an opportunity to redeploy people from current roles into more analysis, proper management. What we have at the moment is quite a lot of transactional processing going on. The best-in-class approach to that would be to bring technology to bear on that. I would like to see more people doing the job that the Deputy in her questioning asked which is really getting under the information and seeing what can be done to make a difference and make more value out of the money we are having. So I do not think we are overstaffed and over-managed relative to other countries.

However, we are not asking the right questions, and are not using the intelligence that it is possible to generate through modern systems, to the benefit of patients, primarily, but also the taxpayer.