Ms Rosarii Mannion:

We are working very hard on recruitment across the system. At the end of August our whole-time figures showed an increase of 3,453 across the system. That is an additional headcount of more than 3,000 in comparison to this time last year. Of that figure, more than 400 are nurses. Health care is delivered by fully-staffed, multidisciplinary teams. No one grade is more important than another. We are very focused on recruiting all grades of staff where they are required including nurses, doctors, GPs, psychologists and staff for the mental health programme. We are doing very well on the recruitment of assistant psychologists. We had approval for 150 of them. That panel will go live in December and will be a significant help in respect of programmes and developments in mental health next year.

With regard to nursing specifically, members will be aware that we have been very focused. We are trying to grow the nursing workforce by 1,208 this year. We are doing well. We are very focused on retention measures. One such measure is a push on flexible working. I am really pleased to see that, across the nursing workforce, in excess of 60% of nurses are availing of flexible working of some description. That is a very good thing and we are actively promoting that. It presents a challenge in the reporting of our nursing figures because variation, increases and decreases will show up month on month.

I was slightly disappointed to see the figures in August but that was attributed to the numbers of more than 60% of nurses on flexible working. Between now and year end, we are focused on agency conversion. As the Minister outlined, we have permanent contracts for all our graduates. We are hoping the uptake will be very good. Feedback on the ground is that it will be. Part of the 1,200 nurses in question was a conversion of 736 agency posts. On any day in the health sector, we have in excess of 1,000 nurses working on agency contracts. We are very focused on achieving that conversion between now and year-end. Between agency conversion, permanent contracts for our graduate and other nurses in the churn, we are making our best and honest effort to achieve that recruitment.

If it is successful and we meet our targets, we will be happy. If it is not, we need to go back to the drawing board to see what else we need to do. There is no doubt that there are constant retention challenges across the health sector. It is a challenging area in which to work. There is competition out there. Many staff we recruit, both nurses and doctors in many specialties, are interested in travelling. We want them doing that by choice, not because there are no posts available.

Overall, that is the situation with recruitment. Suffice to say, we are doing everything possible and will continue to do so. Progress is good but we would like it to be better. Year on year, we have in excess of 3,000 additional staff providing services.