Ms Rosemary Smyth:

We have been pointing out to the committee that the length of time to fill posts is an issue. It can take six months to fill a post. From working with the services experiencing overcrowding, one in the south east that has received a derogation from that because of the pressure from our organisation over overcrowding. This particular service in the south east has 50 vacancies. It has been permitted to recruit directly to fill those posts. It filled some consultant posts in recent weeks, which has helped. It will also get some additional nursing posts. For example, to help with the overcrowding, it had set up a service involving four nurses on the team to do preassessments. They only work from Monday to Friday. They were able to manage the overcrowding from Monday to Friday but then it peaked again at the weekend because they did not have the resources for that time.