Dr. Seán Healy:

The National Treatment Purchase Fund is a method to try to fast-track a solution. If it works, and it has worked in the past in reducing waiting lists and waiting list times, it is useful. However, I would not see it as a long-term solution. We need an integrated one-tier system rather than a two-tier system. We need a system that provides care and addresses need in a way that does not have the scale of waiting lists or the times on waiting lists that people are waiting for treatment. That is done in an integrated system, which I was advocating a moment ago. That is where we need to be going. As we need to realise that we will not do that in a year, we have to be doing things to try to reduce waiting lists and the time and so on. The National Treatment Purchase Fund seems to achieve that in that it is an effective way of working, but we would not see it as a long-term solution.