Mr. Bernard Gloster:

I am conscious of the Deputy's time and I am happy to come back to this issue. It is hard to know how successful the recruitment embargo was because we still finished the year with net growth of 8,300 on the start of last year. We were only meant to finish with 6,100 so I am not sure if my embargoes are very successful. A number of posts are derogated. Critical posts continue to be filled. I am very clear on that. Additional supports were given coming into the winter pressure period. The posts the Deputy has described as "scrapped", although I would say they have been paused or delayed, are posts planned over a multi-annual cycle to improve clinical programmes and services. That overhang is probably now materialising. People anticipated somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 posts.