Professor Malcolm MacLachlan:

I agree with Dr. Lynch. There is a problem in respect of physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists. There are not enough people in training and there are not enough places available for them to undertake that training. Once they are qualified, there are not enough people in the teams to provide adequate support to allow new graduates to feel they have found a good place to work. There is a significant human resources issue.

There is also an issue around, for example, our children's disability network teams, which are not yet fully in a position where they can routinely take on trainees. Historically, people were placed in a hospital context for some of their training and would do other aspects of their training in a community setting. Now that disability services have moved to a community setting, we hope community network teams will routinely have trainees as part of their everyday work, in the same way that happens on a hospital ward with doctors or nurses. That is everyday training and is considered a part of service provision. We need to move that system. It is a big ask at the moment because we do not have enough senior therapists. They are flat-out trying to manage everyday service demands. It means there is no time to spend developing new therapists. It is important to increase the training available. I have mentioned postgraduate opportunities that I think would be a relatively quick win. If we have more courses like that, we will be able to significantly increase the supply of therapists. However, supply is only part of the problem.

I will come back to Senator Clonan because I think I ran away from the question he asked about who is accountable. I do want to address that.

The clinical lead is accountable for clinical services, while the director of operations is accountable for operations services.

I would not recognise the Senator's characterisation of a medical practitioner being in charge of other people. I have worked in this area for 30 years and I have always been responsible for my clinical work. No one else has ever been responsible for it. What medical practitioners are responsible for is ensuring that if they refer someone to me, I am an appropriate person to provide the service, and if they refer someone to a speech and language therapist, that therapist would be an appropriate person to provide the service. All clinicians are responsible for their own services. There is not someone else who is responsible for them. It is important to be aware of that because it does relate to the parity of esteem between different professions.