Member's statement: Health Service: Failures
Member's statement by Mr Danny Donnelly on .
- MLA
- Mr Danny Donnelly
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 12 October 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Health Service: Failures
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5785823
Read the official Assembly record
Text
How many times must we hear about another scandal in the health service, and of how it has failed patients, before we take meaningful action? The urology services inquiry cost over £9 million. It found failures in leadership, governance and oversight that allowed patients to suffer serious harm. People waited for diagnosis and treatment, including cancer care, while the systems that were meant to protect them failed. The chair of the inquiry, Christine Smith KC, said that the findings were rooted in the experiences of patients and families who had been let down by the system. While one clinician was the catalyst for the inquiry, the report made clear that failings were deep-rooted across the trust. That is just another scandal in a long line of failures. The Muckamore inquiry exposed systemic staff bullying, physical abuse and severe neglect of vulnerable adults. That crisis triggered the UK's largest police investigation into adult safeguarding and led to numerous arrests and suspensions. The neurology inquiry examined the recall of over 5,000 neurology patients linked to consultant Michael Watt and the failures by Belfast Health and Social Care Trust over a decade. The Southern Health and Social Care Trust cervical screening review was a major review that forced health authorities to recheck smear tests for 17,500 women, dating back to 2008. Campaigners and affected families have so far been denied a full statutory inquiry into how the screening errors occurred and whether other trusts were impacted on. There is also the infected blood inquiry. Northern Ireland victims have been heavily impacted on by the UK-wide infected blood scandal, where thousands were treated with contaminated blood products. The public inquiry condemned successive Governments and health bodies for systemic cover-ups and ignoring safety warnings. The Dunmurry Manor care home investigation, carried out by the Commissioner for Older People for Northern Ireland, uncovered severe failures in the standards of care, safety and regulation for dementia patients. Each of those cases has massively impacted on the lives of the victims and their families, some of whom have lost loved ones. Each of the cases deserves attention in its own right. Together, they leave us with this question, which another apology cannot answer: who is responsible for ensuring that this changes?
We have only a short time left in the mandate, but we need the robust duty-of-candour legislation that Justice O'Hara recommended in 2018. Families have waited long enough.
401 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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