Ms O’CONNOR – Just a very quick clarification in overview, thank you, Chair. Just going back to the vacancy control issue. Can I just confirm through you, minister, there’s one cohort of nurses who are in patient-facing roles who are exempt from vacancy control. Are they the nurses on the wards? What sort of nurses are we talking about here, because there are different categorisations. One small group of nurses is exempt. Where are they in the system?
Mr WEBSTER – Through you, minister. In fact, it’s probably the largest proportion of our nurses are in the exempt category. It is, if you like the ward-facing – so nursing hours for patient days across our acute, sub-acute wards, our mental health wards and a number of areas such as that. It’s basically, if you like, making sure that we’ve got sufficient nurses to do patient care in our hospital system is the category that’s exempt.
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes. Thank you.
