Professor David Keegan:

We have talked about IT. Key to that is how the finances flow through the system. We are dealing with six different legal entities and chief financial officers in healthcare organisations will be quite protective of their budgets. We needed absolute transparency in funding flows and co-ordinated efforts. Our finance team is co-led by Ms Anne Kennedy from CHO 8 and Ms Caroline Pigott, former chief financial officer of Sláintecare and now working on the NERIECS team. That is absolutely crucial because it means the RCSI Hospitals Group, all the CHOs and CHI have visibility. We have agreed a core account and we have agreed with the chief financial officer of the HSE that he will look at how funding can come from a central HSE budget into that account and that the VACO will have responsibility for distributing those funds throughout the NERIECS region in line with our purpose pyramid for waiting list reduction.