Ms Sandra Broderick:

The initiative covers physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. At the moment a significant number of patients across the country, in the order of about 59,000 people, have been waiting over a year for access to that therapy. Through outsourcing initiatives and overtime initiatives with our own staff, we plan to get through that volume of activity to reduce the waiting time for those three core areas to 39 weeks, and then bolster our core services to make sure we maintain at the 39 weeks. There are also other opportunities available to us in terms of what we are referring into primary care. There is a little bit of getting the activity through the initiative the Minister is announcing, but also putting the right patients into the right pathways the first time.