Ms Susan Clyne:

The reason this or any Government would be in a poor negotiating position is because the public health system has been so underfunded, has too few beds, too few doctors and increasing demand.

On the detail of the negotiations or the deal with the private hospitals, we were not involved in any of those negotiations. We really do not want the committee to lose sight of the following fact. Whatever arrangement the Government now enters into with the public hospitals - and it will need to enter into some kind of an arrangement with them - needs to be based on prioritising clinical need while at the same time investing in public services. This cannot be another excuse to say, "we are doing this, we have this capacity so we don't need to do anything in the public service". The public service is crying out for beds and manpower, and we need to do that now.