Ms Anne O'Connor:

The question on payments is bigger than just us, I believe. Many people, including students, are struggling with costs. Student nurses, for example, get paid for their intern year or fourth year. Other students do not get paid and it would be a complex picture if students were to be paid for their clinical training. I do not know and it would be a very big decision. As I said, it is bigger than just us.

We have had discussions on the INMO report and, to be fair to the organisation, it flagged its concerns on a regular basis in terms of assaults on staff. It is something in which we have seen a significant increase, particularly in areas where we have unscheduled presentations, such as accident and emergency departments, acute mental health services, etc. We are looking at that and there was a review some years ago on the safety of staff in those areas. We are looking at that and working within the organisation and the quality and safety committee to see how we might examine the question again. There is no doubt but that there is a challenge for staff working in some of those areas and in how we continue to provide services in a safe way.

We are grappling with how to provide services to the patient and protect staff. We have a responsibility to our staff and to provide care but we must consider the matter. We have different types of solutions in different services and areas. For example, there may be security people in some departments and not others. We are examining that issue and we have spoken to the INMO about it. I do not know if it is enough to deter people from a role in healthcare if that is what they want to do. There are many people working across our services. There are many staff working in the community who may feel exposed and we have many policies relating to lone work in order to protect staff working in isolated services.