Mr. Damien McCallion:

I will come in on that. Mr. Morton mentioned that there is a group already in place focused on this issue between hospitals and the ambulance service. The core of the issue with regard to staffing is that we have put extra funding in for safer staffing in our emergency departments and our hospitals. We also discussed at the committee recently, and the Deputy has mentioned, the challenges around staffing in the context of recruiting nurses and doctors in emergency departments. As Mr. Morton has said, some of the measures that have been set up with the ambulance service are to try to mitigate those pressures that continue on our emergency departments. Part of the winter plan is looking at those measures. It is not just in the ambulance service because, in fairness, the challenge is not just there. It is in the hospital on the one hand as well as trying to grow the capacity in the ambulance service.

We are under pressure. We spoke to the NHS last night and they are equally under huge pressure on this issue of ambulance turnarounds. The causal factors are partially down to the current increased demand going into the winter. This is why that group is in place to look at solutions in the short, medium and longer term, and also looking at crisis solutions, as Mr. Morton has set out. Mr. Morton might want to respond on that. I want to be clear to the Deputy that there is a group focused on this. We see it as a huge issue for our performance, for safety, for the release of ambulances, and for patients. There is a group focused on this for our hospitals and ambulance services. A collective solution needs to be found. It is a challenge in lots of healthcare systems at the moment, unfortunately, coming out of the pandemic where we are seeing a lot of pressures on emergency departments.

I understand the Deputy's concerns and what he has said about getting confidence on it. We can assure the Deputy that every effort is being made to try to find solutions that will address it. It is not a simple fix. I just want to be clear on that. We are trying-----