Professor Damian McCormack:

It depends on how one defines a waiting list. Numbers of children are quoted as waiting for scoliosis surgery. I do a lot of scoliosis surgery. Some of the surgeries take me ten minutes. If I am extending a telescopic rod in a three-year old, that is a scoliosis operation, as defined by management. Some of those surgeries take all day and they are dangerous and life threatening. It depends on how we count and how we define what exactly we are doing. There is a disconnect between what I do day to day and how I see these patients and how they are quantified on lists and presented. I have to take patients one at a time, and I do not pay too much attention to what is happening elsewhere.