I think one of the lessons we've learned, as a country, in the last number of years is about the complexity of the relationship between doing additional volumes and the impact on waiting times and waiting lists. It is absolutely the case that we are doing additional volumes of scans, as well as surgeries, in the priority areas. I think that's very clear.
The impact that would have on times is less clear. It may be the case that the ability to do surgeries in a more timely way draws out more demand, as some have speculated. There may have been suppressed demand, where people felt the list was too long. I've heard some physicians express the view that perhaps they weren't suggesting surgery because it was simply too long a wait or they were waiting until they felt there was greater access. So there may be increased demand coming forward because of the increased volumes.
What individual jurisdictions are looking at is the complexity. We are doing more, but that doesn't necessarily mean in all cases that there's a corresponding immediate decrease in the waiting times. We are seeing those emerge in some places, but in other places we see increased volumes and yet the time remains relatively stable, and that may be because of increased demand.
So I think it's important to look at the volumes. It will also be important for us to track the information on waiting times over time.