Mr. Neil Richardson:

The brief answer to that question is that it would be fantastic if that could be brought in. Our main contention has always been that the medical resourcing of Reserve recruitment has been woefully inadequate. In past years, we have always been told that the next competition will be different and that the resources will be in place. We are now being told that an element of the Reserve Defence Force enlistment medical will be outsourced and that 600 medicals will be provided a year. That is a great statement but we would like to see it substantively come about. We are very much advocating for a fully outsourced model for Reserve enlistment medicals simply because past evidence has shown that the Defence Forces internal medical system is not capable of handling the volume of applicants we get for the Reserve. Perhaps, it may be better for this system to focus on Permanent Defence Force applicants. However, we absolutely agree that private sector medicals are one way to fix that problem.