Mr. Paul Reid:

The Department and the HSE have a joint team co-chaired by Mr. Watt and me. We have the key leads in terms of acute and community care at Department and HSE level.

Separate to that I was very anxious to ensure, in the context of change management, that we have line ownership and line responsibility for the implementation of regions. As was said, Mr. Woods is a very senior and respected official within the HSE. Mr. Woods will be coming out to lead on the implementation. On foot of Ms Anne O'Connor leaving, alongside Mr. Woods will be Mr. Damian McCallion, who will take up the interim role of chief operations officer. That responsibility will, again, be within the line. As we start to put the structures together, Mr. Woods will have a network of people across the regions and CHOs - as it is at the minute - and acute hospitals, for leads within each of the CHOs and hospital groups, to support him in the implementation. We are working through a team that will support Mr. Woods. Separate to that, within the agency we have a strategic team led by Mr. Dean Sullivan, which is looking at the wider aspects of Sláintecare implementation, not just the regions element. There are a number of network leads across the country.