Ms Anne Marie Hoey:

We obviously very much welcome the increase in the number of clinical placements to grow our supply in future years. With nursing for instance, this year there is an increase of over 200 additional nursing places. Over the last number of months colleagues in the nursing and midwifery planning office worked with services to ensure clinical placements are available for each of those in future years. We have equally seen an increase in training places for a number of the health and social care professions. Again, colleagues work with services to ensure we can provide the clinical places to support their education, in conjunction with the higher education institutions, over the next number of years.