Mr. Barry McBrien:

If they come into the department when they need it, I need to call a senior doctor away because it cannot be a junior doctor. I have to call a senior doctor away from the department and I work in an emergency context; that doctor could be dealing with critically ill patients. That is all then delayed.

The doctor has to come, replicate everything I have done such as taking the patient's history and medication history. That leads to a very long telephone call with the methadone centre to identify how much methadone the patient is on, which protracts everything as well. It really has massive workforce implications as well because we take people away from critical work to do things that nurse prescribers could do.