Mr. Paul Reid:

On the first question, we have been working through a plan which is to see us through the winter and 2021. We are looking at this plan very differently now because it is not just about a winter plan and what we would normally have to do in winter. It is about how we and our services cope, how we protect the public, our patients and our staff with Covid virus, and about the level the virus reaches at different stages. We have done two things. We have significant funding already in place which is supporting a number of initiatives that we put in place in the early stages of Covid. We are also finalising plans with the board of the HSE and through Government for a set of funding to see us through the winter and through 2021. This will involve a range of significant, different approaches aiming to keep people out of hospitals, including the likes of the community assessment hubs that we used during Covid in a very different way to treat respiratory illnesses, to try to filter out the number of people who will need to come to a hospital setting, the number of outpatients that we can have in place outside of a hospital and in our community services, and a range of investments which are the traditional investments in home care packages and our community service and community intervention teams, and the Covid response teams. This is a range of initiatives that strengthen our community services, reduce the impacts on our acute services but also significantly increase our capacity in the community services. One further aspect of that response will be our engagement with and utilisation of the private hospitals, as took place throughout the first phase, but in a very different way.

I am happy to go through how that may look in the future. It is another support that we would have throughout winter and into next year.