Ms Anne O'Connor:

I will take the question on home support and hand over to Mr. Woods on diagnostics within acute settings.

Deputy Colm Burke is absolutely right that we have a significant dependency on providers in the home support area. In some parts of the country, we employ home support workers directly, and in other parts, we rely on funded agencies. Within our winter plan we have a significant dependency on home support. In terms of the Homes First model, which is referenced within the winter plan, it is critical for us that we maintain and significantly increase the level of home support. We are aware that over the last six months the home support levels dropped off. From April to June, we reduced our home support by approximately 22% so we saw a drop-off of approximately 11,500 clients. Some of that was at the client's own request in terms of having people coming into his or her home and some were reduced in terms of low-priority provision from our perspective. That number has reduced to 5,000 people so we are now bringing the level of home support back up. In some parts of the country, we see the challenge some agencies have in terms of securing sufficient workers. I am aware that a number of those agencies have proactive recruitment campaigns which include full training for the role and we are engaging with them.

In terms of that dependency in our winter plan, our local community health organisations, CHOs, have been working with the home support providers to prepare for this significant increase. We are aware that it is a challenge. We are also aware that in the climate we are in, people are not always willing to go into those roles for all sorts of reasons. The agencies are being challenged in terms of, for example, their insurance policies as they relate to communicable diseases. There are other challenges for these agencies at the minute which we are trying to work through with them. They are real challenges. We are looking at how we recruit home support workers while, critically, enabling the other agencies on which we will rely. There should be no difference in terms of weekend cover. If a need is identified for home support, that should be available at all the times it is required. From our perspective, that will certainly form part of our contractual arrangements with the providers. If there is a specific issue the Deputy wishes to bring to my attention, he should feel free to send me on something.