Dr. Adrienne Duff:

Last year, the board of the authority established the health and social care advisory committee. We identified in our work programme that we wanted to engage more with the health and social care sector and we are exploring various forums for that to happen. We have a structure within the authority where we have two advisory committees in the agriculture and construction sectors. They seem like a very good model to get the voices from the sectors to provide advice to the authority on key occupational health and safety issues within the sectors. Also, it would be a voice for promoting occupational health and safety to the sectors.

The board approved the establishment of the new advisory committee last year. As recently as a few weeks ago, the committee was set up and we held our first meeting. We have two further meetings planned for this year and an associated work plan to go with that.