Mr. Tony O'Brien:

The primary responsibility for the supervision of consultant work lies with the clinical director.

Each consultant, as part of his or her contract, has what is known as a job plan, which specifies the amount of time he or she will spend in outpatient clinics, in theatre, in transit between locations, on ward rounds and so on. Given the role of the clinical directors, they are in a position to monitor that. By and large, we do not have a problem with consultants doing less than their hours. By and large, they work up to and beyond their contracted hours. There are from time to time individual instances and clinical directors are empowered to deal with that.