Dr. Colm Henry:

I cannot answer specifically on Milford hospice but, as with voluntary agencies that are funded by us, we have service level agreements over their activity and, of course, they would include standards and quality of care. We have a number of hospice facilities, such as the one in Cork, where they might have independent boards but they are funded by the HSE. Our relationship with these entities is quite similar to that which we have with section 39 hospitals, voluntary hospitals, in that we would enter a service level agreement based on agreed funding to provide a specified level of service, and tied into that service would be specific quality measures.