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?
I just want to explore the vacancy control program. There was a leaked email which went out to, we presume, numerous THS staff which confirmed the existence of a vacancy control program. At least one committee was referenced in that leaked email which was established to oversee the process. Have any staff roles been entirely exempted from vacancy control measures?
The Greens are very concerned to understand what the human implications of the $130 million in savings across the forward estimates will be, and that's just the efficiency dividend. So, minister, we presume it'll be left to the department to determine how that efficiency dividend is achieved. And perhaps through you, the secretary could give us some idea about the plan for these savings. But what we want to understand is exactly what measures will be taken in order to achieve these $130 million in cuts, and how many full-time equivalent positions do you expect to be cut?
The Australian Nurses and Midwifing Federation (ANMF) is spot on: the staffing situation at the LGH over the weekend was diabolical and definitely unsafe.
