Ms Eilísh Hardiman:

I will add that the communications have been challenging. That is something we have identified that we could improve on. I totally understand a parent wants to know when their child will have surgery. Clinical nurse specialists were referred to and while they are conduits, when there are many people on a waiting list we have to support those specialists. They cannot spend all their time communicating. There are things we need to look at in order to communicate a little better and be clear about our patient management system. Patients come onto waiting lists, particularly for scoliosis, but there are significant staged elements of pre-assessments and other assessments because some of these cases are very complex. That is normal and is about safe patient care. We need to be clear about when the decision for surgery is made, even though there could be a lengthy period before that where people are on a waiting list in preparation for that decision point. Those are the sort of complexities. One of the things we will look at, and we offered this through the advocacy groups we meet with on a regular basis, is to get better at communications.