Ms Vanessa Hetherington:

If we are to be able to recruit and retain health services staff we need to resource our health system so that they can practise in a safe environment. As stated in our opening statement, we are competing with other English speaking countries and we are losing doctors to countries where they are treated with much greater value, they are given the resources they need to carry out their work and they are provided with clinical supports and work-life balance. We have begun addressing acute capacity and we now have the Sláintecare report. We now need to begin addressing how we can recruit and retain our doctors and other health care professionals in the system.