Debate contribution: Health and Social Care Transformation

Debate contribution by Mrs Diane Dodds on 6 October 2026.

MLA

Mrs Diane Dodds

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

6 October 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Health and Social Care Transformation

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5777059

Read the official Assembly record

Text

As I understand it, Professor Bengoa will be back in Northern Ireland at the Northern Ireland Confederation for Health and Social Care (NICON) conference to set out what needs to be done, and I am sure that he hopes to hear about what has been done. I looked at the Department's website to find out what had happened since the conference two years ago, which, ironically, was called "Accelerating Change". The Department's home page directs viewers to the transformation progress page on the departmental website. It contains three items: two are from 2019, and the most recent is from 2021. Minister, that is a sad indictment of where three Ulster Unionist Health Ministers have led us. Many Members in the Chamber today have talked about the continuous reports on the state of the health service. Of course, when he was here 10 years ago, Professor Bengoa said that he thought that there was report fatigue and that we had exhausted ourselves analysing the problem but had not done anything about it. We are concerned about that and think that throwing out another committee, or whatever it is, is not going to cut it with the people out there who can see the crumbling services.

In an article for ‘agendaNi’ last November, the Health Minister's predecessor talked about transformation or, as we now call it, "reset". Minister, you are new to the post, but you are the third Ulster Unionist Health Minister. Two years ago this autumn, we had the public consultation "Hospitals — Creating a Network for Better Outcomes", and it was extended to December of that year. We are now two full years later, and we have no information on the consultation responses and an independent expert advisory committee. I am not sure whether Mr Burrows said that that was the way to proceed or not, but we all deserve more and better. You have now decided that the hospital network proposals will not be taken any further. You said that they cause you significant concern, and you have asked the Department not to progress them. That is what has been wrong with the idea of transformation in Northern Ireland. We decide on one thing, and then we decide that we are not taking it forward; we create something else, and nobody knows what is going to happen with that something else.

If you are quick.

I think that it is more widespread than that. The problem for politicians' conversation around transformation is that people and communities see it as a loss. We have no overall plan. We have not explained to people what exactly that transformation will look like, and we have not built up the services that help that transformation to progress with a good heart. For example, after the loss of emergency general surgery in the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH), there was no investment in ambulance services, and patients are transferred to a fairly chaotic ED in Altnagelvin Hospital, which is also under immense pressure. Therefore, what we are doing is transferring one problem to another place, and we are not solving the problem. I have a lot of sympathy with the argument that people in Fermanagh are so far away from services that it is very difficult for them. When I questioned the Western Trust recently, I discovered that, in the southern area of the Western Trust, there are acute imbalances, for example, in the Hospital at Home service. It is all based around Strabane and Londonderry, but very little of it is in the farthest part of the trust area in Fermanagh. That is the problem for rural communities. It is the same in Daisy Hill Hospital and Causeway Hospital. We have not treated the whole. We have always told people that transformation is to be seen as a loss. I will finish with two things for the Minister. Ladies with Letters were here today. It is three years on, and there are no real answers. There was a refusal from his predecessor to grant that public inquiry. I asked Health officials in July to tell me the youngest person in Northern Ireland who had been treated —

— with puberty blockers. I have not heard the answer to that, and I asked the Minister a question for priority written answer about a month ago.

We would like to hear those answers.

729 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 01:22 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9. This record has been assessed 3 times; the latest assessment is shown.

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