Ms Susan Clyne:

First, we should be honest and say that we do not believe the NTPF is a long-term solution to the capacity issues in the health service. In fact, it could deprive public health services of much-needed funding. If there is to be an NTPF, and we understand it is to be supercharged with more money, we would prefer to see that spending in the public system, or the public system to be supported to deliver more care. Currently, it is quite complex to do business plans and get funding through. All of that has to be speeded up. Medics, clinicians and their nursing and other colleagues can be innovative and can put forward proposals for funding to get that through. We agree that the NTPF should not just be simply one diagnostic tool based. In fact, the NTPF fund might be better spent if it was spent on an entire episode of care to clear the backlog rather than on a suite of diagnostics and low-complexity, high-volume work.