Ms Vanessa Hetherington:

It is wrong to say that the ageing population is not having an impact on the system. The demographics show that we have an ageing population. While not all elderly people are sick, they do represent 50% of the expenditure on our system. The elderly population is growing rapidly and funding is not keeping up with it. We are constantly playing catch up year after year so it is very difficult to say exactly what funding is needed. Based on the current model, we would be trying to catch up with current waiting lists and the increased demand on emergency services and GP care so there is a lot but we need to look at what model we want and what investment we need and we need capital investment, something we have been very short of for the past number of years.