Debate contribution: Hip Surgery: Waiting Times
Debate contribution by Mr Robbie Butler on .
- MLA
- Mr Robbie Butler
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 21 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Hip Surgery: Waiting Times
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5742255
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for North Belfast for his question. Approximately 2,200 patients are currently waiting for a routine primary hip replacement across all trusts. That is an 18% reduction in overall waits compared with March 2025, when 2,700 patients were waiting for that procedure. The vast majority of those patients currently wait less than three years for their hip procedure, with fewer than 100 patients waiting beyond three years. The Belfast Health and Social Care Trust has only 43 patients who have been waiting over three years for a routine primary hip procedure and fewer than 10 patients who have been waiting for four years. There can be patients who come off medical suspension and appear to have been waiting longer than that timescale, but those patients will be prioritised for assessment and listed for surgery. Funding has recently been confirmed to support the appointment of a new orthopaedic consultants across our local trauma and orthopaedic units. While core capacity is being built, my Department will continue to work with trusts to secure additional activity through the waiting list initiative. That will include using in-house core capacity as well as transferring patients to a number of independent sector providers. Over this financial year, waiting list initiative funding has supported the transfer of approximately 800 patients to independent sector providers for primary hip or knee procedures. Despite the very real financial pressures that face the health and social care system, progress is being made. There has been a significant reduction in the number of patients who are waiting for hip and knee replacement surgery, and, from March 2026 to August 2026, the number of patients who were projected to wait for more than three and a half years for hip replacement surgery by March 2027 fell by 49%, which is a reduction of 162 patients. The number of patients who are waiting for primary knee replacement was reduced by 39%, which is a reduction of 284 patients. I am committed to achieving the maximum waiting list time target of three and a half years for knees and hips by March 2027.
351 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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