Mr. Paul Reid:

The Deputy asked questions on the wider process for recruitment and retention. In the first instance, we put in place a new model over the past two years which devolves a significant level of recruitment to services in order for those services to recruit directly. Second, we have worked with the Public Appointments Service to accelerate the process, particularly in respect of consultants and senior professional medics. That has helped significantly. Third, we have put a new recruitment model in place with a third party provider to operate on a scale well above what we would be able to do because, as I mentioned, recruiting 35,000 people over two years is very significant.

I will ask my colleague to comment on the home help issue the Deputy highlighted, which is a real challenge.

I will make two other final comments, the first of which is on people leaving. I agree with Mr. Watt that people will leave for various reasons. We all know many people who have left, including family members, some of whom have come back and some of whom have not. That is a function of factors and the decisions people make. Specifically for us, I mentioned earlier that we have to recruit 9,500 people every year in order to stand still. When we talk the about 12,500 over two years, we have had to recruit a further 19,000 people just to stand still. There is, therefore, a great deal of churn.

My final comment is not directed specifically at the Deputy but is more general. There can be some awful generalisations made about the health service. I have listened to some commentary over the weekend, not by politicians, that it is an awful place to work, asking who would go to work in it. The health service is actually a very good place to work and is full of highly committed professionals. Some of these general, tired statements that are made at times really hurt us and our staff in respect of retention. The heath service is a good place to work.

Similarly, at senior levels, there is an increasing personalisation of senior roles. I am not talking of my role or that of anyone in particular. The increasing personalisation of public service roles does not do good to get the right people into the public service. I wanted to make a general comment on that because that is about recruitment and retention of the best people.