Dr. Tony Holohan:

There are specific actions and I can go into them in some detail. We are at an advanced stage in considering a policy piece of work that we have been working on for some months on patient involvement to recognise both the time and financial effort that is involved for individuals to participate. As I have said, we regard the input of patients as being important in all of the work we do, not only in this but in the development of policy and the oversight of implementation of policy, and we want to support people better in doing that.

We had a management board discussion as an organisation on an advanced draft that we hope to be in a position in early 2020 to present to the Minister for approval and ultimately for publication following consideration by Government. We take that very seriously. That is a piece of work that will be fully informed by all that the committee heard here last night.