Dr. Niamh Humphries:

When we talk to doctors, it sounds really convoluted and complicated. Consultants will say that they were really understaffed this week. When we ask them who they can call to say that they will need more staff next week, they explain that they need to make a business case and they need to forward that through. It might take a year to get an extra member of staff, even though staffing levels are urgent now. It sounds very slow and not agile. The system is slow to respond to the need for more staffing and the need for better resourcing. We need to shrink the distance between the policymakers who make decisions on recruitment and staffing and those on the front line who know what is needed. That distance needs to be shrunk.