Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in the past, the department has really been more reactive than proactive in this area, reacting to concerns that have been raised by boards themselves may identify that they would like to have an audit done in a certain area or we have been reacting to a concern that is been brought to our attention.

Over the past couple of years, we have averaged probably less than a half dozen specific nursing audits, for example, a year in specific communities or in specific boards. We have been asked to come in and do file audits in the child welfare area again with specific boards.

However, there really is not the capacity at the departmental level to undertake systematic, system-wide, regular clinical audits of all of the programs. We simply do not have an adequate number of professional staff resident in the department who would be able to undertake that on a regular basis.

That is not to say that there is not some level of review going on in all the boards. For example, most of the boards, particularly those that have hospitals, submit themselves to a national accreditation process which looks at a number of key features that a hospital would have to have to meet national accreditation standards. So there are other checks and balances in the system, but there certainly is a very minimal capacity within the department to provide the clinical oversight.

We have tried to remediate that by establishing the second ADM position, which is responsible for clinical programs. We hope to build in some improved capacity to be able to provide a higher level of clinical oversight to regional programming. Thank you.