Mr. Kevin Brady:

That is a credit to the specialist work it does. We are actively engaged with nursing students throughout their four-year programmes. It is important to take into consideration their skills and competency to work within the area and determine how we can support them in moving from being graduates to staff nurses. The staff speak highly of the opportunities they have been given in the inpatient unit through working with senior staff, who buddy up with them. We have developed clearly defined nursing career pathways, clinical nurse specialist, CNS, posts, advanced nurse practitioner posts and nurse prescribing. We have personal development plans for the staff that we engage and invest in considerably and we provide significant training for them. The regrettable part of that is that, when some qualify and go for interviews with us, those are actually their exit interviews because they are leaving for other services around the country, which is a major challenge for us.