Mr. Paul Bell:

I am not aware of any such audit. We are raising this issue at the forums we share with other unions, including the national joint council and the health service oversight body, which deals with the public service stability agreement. We believe the current level of spending is out of control. No attempt is being made to erect any barriers to it. There is no recognition of the fact that some of the policies being implemented, such as the embargo or pause on recruitment, are feeding directly into this.

There is no recognition that some of the policies being implemented, such as the embargo on recruitment, or the recruitment pause, are directly feeding into this. We see that other parts of the health service suffer even greater consequences. In community care, for instance, the hours for our most vulnerable citizens who require homecare were cut back. It seems to be easy enough to say there are no further hours available and expenditure will not be increased. This is kicking in right across the service. In some of the areas, most of the damage being done in the delivery of the health service is invisible to the eye unless someone is demanding a service for the care of the elderly or a service related to an intellectual disability or mental health issue.