Ms Paula Kelly:

I have one comment on this. It is heartbreaking to hear that parents get to a point where they feel they have to leave the country because I can attest we now have 11 paediatrics final surgeons who are trained. They are fellowship trained and are from all over the world, including North America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. They are the most highly trained spinal surgeons possible so it is heartbreaking to hear that parents feel they have to leave the country for treatment.

On initiatives, every crisis creates an opportunity, as they say. We tried to do a lot of work during the Covid pandemic. One of the initiatives we got was the active triage clinics where consultants actively triage a patient, ring them beforehand and then see them face-to-face. To put some numbers on that, and I know it is not all about numbers, Crumlin hospital staff saw more than 1,000 patients in Citywest. The conversion rate of those 1,000 children to surgery was just 5%, which is reassuring. Those children were the ones who were waiting longest and that is a reassuring figure. That initiative worked outstandingly well. We need more initiatives and we need support from management and the Government to continue them.

We also brought in virtual fracture clinics. That initiative really transformed how many patients we needed to see in the actual clinic. It did not discommode parents and patients' families by having them come into a clinic when it could be done over the phone.