Dr. Anthony O'Connor:

It is a huge concern. If we cancel the contract immediately, it would mean that those 10,000 operations can happen but it bears no relation to need or urgency.

One could have a situation where the private sector is allowed to operate as it normally does but the public patients are still completely locked out of all elective care and all cancer care. That is why this organisation was calling for both arms of the service to be opened up in tandem according to clinical need, with urgent time-sensitive stuff first, maybe something like chronic non-malignant disease after that and then opening up more gradually while seeing if there is any more benefit we can wring out of this deal for however long is left, be it a month or whatever.