Professor Colette Cowan:

I will start with the last point first and work back towards the maternity hospital issue. I have said consistently to my team and all the staff over the past few months that after the pandemic people in the health service have no reserve left. They worked consistently and very hard. FEMPI came before that and we have no say over reversing it. Again, that is a Government decision but pay awards have lifted morale slightly. There is balloting going on at present and staff can see some level of increase in pay coming, but I do not set staff salaries and I cannot influence them either. I just follow the consolidated pay scales under public service.

Morale is low for everybody because people are tired and fatigued. They continue to come to work and now see a service surging again and delayed access to care for patients. People stayed at home because of Covid and we see more people coming in sick. It is an area we have to work hard on to help staff, which we have. We built a health and well-being centre for staff in UHL last year during the pandemic. They have access to free mindfulness and exercise classes, and they absolutely love it. The feedback on it has been immense. That has helped staff. They are coming in early to do yoga classes. We are trying to rebuild them; we also have psychology teams involved with them. We are trying to build morale. Of course, we have to work on our own morale and build our own reserves as well as that of teams across the national system.

The Deputy is so right about the informatics system. We concur that an electronic patient record is the answer to a lot of things. High cost-----