John Crown (Independent)
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I have a quick follow-up question. I am sorry to put Professor Gallagher on the spot. Professor Gallagher and I are old friends and colleagues and I have limitless respect for what he has achieved with the CF patients and, more broadly, in upscaling the quality of respiratory medicine in this country. Does he believe, as is being billed to us, that 20 designated beds plus competitive access to the pool of single rooms in the hospital is putting us in an adequate situation to meet international guidelines or do we need to bite the bullet and have 34 designated beds? Is he happy that decisions with respect to whether he should be re-referring patients back to other centres and not letting them stay in the national centre are being followed? Is he being put under any pressure to depart from what he believes is the right way of handling these issues?

I will make a brief statement. It is very depressing that five months after the opening of a much-heralded and long-awaited unit, we are still talking about having crisis and late night meetings next week. It says something very profound about the way we run things. If there had not been such a significant burst of publicity two weeks ago, I am not sure what would happen. It is always the same. It is the politics of the last health care atrocity every time when we try to advance things in our health system.