Mr. Bernard Gloster:

One of the most recent issues we have confronted, and one of the ones that I found most abhorrent, is the experience of some of our international staff, either in the communities they live in or on their way to work or when they are at work. A diversity and inclusion training emphasis goes right across our workforce to make sure we support international staff to be welcomed into and to be valued and respected in the workplace. We also promote that to the public in terms of the public interaction with the staff. The exact same can be said about the culture of patient safety and how we now take complaints of patient safety, how we inquire into them, scrutinise them and publish them. Those things are all signs of a culture that is outward looking. We are open to the public about what we are doing and we are open to hearing the public, whereas traditionally we have been accused of being very closed and very secret. This performance report, which tells you everything you need to know about the performance of the health service in real time in a month, is now published on our website every month. Every day from now to the end of March, when you click on the HSE website, you will see the actual trolley count and the state of emergency departments across the country. We were previously accused of lying, of hiding trolleys, so all of those things are reflective of a culture.