Mr. Nicholas Jermyn:

In respect of these two emergency patients there have been situations in which we have not been able to take in all patients. I emphasise that following an afternoon clinic one might have five patients who are told they need to be admitted. We are working out a process whereby patients with an urgent need do get in. Then we are able to get patients appropriate beds within 24 hours. In the two days we spoke about we admitted two patients per day whose needs were urgent. There were other patients we would like to have admitted straightaway but we took them in the next day. In the Nutley wing we try to admit all patients. Once a patient is admitted to the Nutley wing, outside the cystic fibrosis unit, in the other five ward areas we have accommodated a cepacia, cystic fibrosis patient on each of those floors. We cannot then put any other cystic fibrosis patient on those wards.

We are studying the infection control measures. As a result of the way the wards are designed, there are two sides to them, we may be able to put another patient in. That means we have further accommodation available. We can put patients with certain infections together. That is what we are studying now. I stress that there have been times when this issue has not received the same media attention. We were flexing and we took in patients on the night when five patients were waiting. We had them all in by the next day. We had four new patients the next day and we got two of them in. We have to work through this issue with the CF Association, the individual patients and their families to see how we can best use the resources available to us. It is difficult in the evening when the accident and emergency unit and other specialties are pushing for resources. We did sign an agreement with everybody that we would flex the beds up. We have run into difficulties from which we will learn. We are working with the clinicians and nurses and we are working with the other centres.

To reassure the members of the committee I emphasise that we will get patients who are really sick in. We got an emergency patient in the other night who had to come to the accident and emergency unit because of the way the patient had collapsed. There are different levels of acuity and we will work through that with the clinicians and the patients. I am sorry if we did not give committee members confidence in our work. This is a fabulous news story. We have a fantastic new state-of-the-art unit on which we have spent a lot of taxpayers' money. Let us make the maximum use of it and reassure patients who come to this unit. We should not have a situation such as that which arose last week which undermines the confidence of patients which affects staff and morale and everybody else.