Dr. Duncan Rogers:

This is a slightly measured response. As we rejig capacity and the lean process, we will be able to see more patients with similar amounts of staff. The Mater hospital has 7.4 whole-time equivalent consultant posts. There are more than seven consultants but across the board, we have that. We see 32,000 outpatient attendances per year. The next closest person is the surgical director, who sees 55% fewer than that. We have a significant mismatch between what we are seeing and what would be the rational and safe figure in terms of keeping our staff from burning out. Across the board and as long as we get sufficient space and do the lean processing, we could be looking at an increase of about 20% in staffing at consultant, non-consultant hospital doctor and allied health professional. If we want to get to a perfect state where we can train staff safely and they enjoy their jobs and are not burning out and there is sustainability, there is a large amount we can do with lean processing and being careful about how we use our space but at some point, there will be a need for an increase in uplift in staff. We are not ready to ask for that now because we do not have the sensible data to present to this committee.