Ms Chris Cully:

I want to contribute on the issue of temporary staff and our experience of the usage of agency staff. We believe that such staff should be temporary direct employees of the health service. Part of the reason there are quite a number of staff being employed from agencies is because of the slow process of approving posts for filling and the moratorium that is not a moratorium but is really a moratorium. We have experience of seeking for a post to be filled, for example, for a maternity cover, and it taking nine months to get approval. If one has a front-line situation where one needs to have the post filled, if it will take nine months what one will do in the meantime is take in an agency person. That is what the people on the ground are experiencing. They are trying to fill the holes because of slow systems that they are a victim of when they are trying to run a front-line service.