Professor Paddy Broe:

The Chairman is absolutely right. That leaves not only patients, irrespective of whether they are public or private, without a service in terms of elective surgery, it also leaves empty theatres, idle nurses and doctors. The potential contribution of hospital groups is that congested hospitals can move low-complexity patients who do not require the services of a level four hospital to another institution, so they get the service they require. Take the case of someone who lives at the back of Beaumont Hospital and is on a waiting list there. If the condition allows for that individual to be treated elsewhere, then that should be the case. That could never have happened without the development of the groups.

All three questioners have brought up the issue of the recruitment and quality of staff. As a medical director, my job is to ensure that staff at the front line are competent and of good quality. There is no doubt that the further one moves away from a level 4 hospital, the less likely the quality of staff and the more likely it will be a challenge. Part of the difficulty of recruitment of surgery-----