Debate contribution: Health and Social Care Transformation

Debate contribution by Mr Alan Robinson on 6 October 2026.

MLA: Mr Alan Robinson
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 5777084

Text

At the outset, it is important to state that there was a game-changer announcement yesterday from the Health Minister. We need to applaud him and the previous Health Minister for that. Collectively, as a Committee, we have worked very well. All of us can put our differences aside, despite what has been a very difficult week, to applaud that very positive announcement. Ten years ago, Bengoa said that the health service could not continue as it was. His message was that the health service here needed to move away from being too heavily dependent on hospital-based care and move towards prevention and early intervention. However, on 30 June 2026, 504,537 patients were waiting for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment at hospitals in Northern Ireland. We are told that that is 6,143 fewer than on 31 March 2026. A total of 81,223 were waiting for inpatient or day-case admission to hospitals on 30 June 2026. Again, we are told that that is 1,345 fewer than on 31 March. Furthermore, 231,145 patients were waiting for a diagnostic test on 30 June 2026, but that is 11,228 more than on 31 March 2026. We hear every day that the health service here is under huge pressure. There are workforce shortages, pay issues and poor staff morale. GP services are struggling to cope. Cancer waiting times remain far too long, and too many patients, as referred to, are waiting far too long for diagnosis and treatment. There are also serious concerns in the Belfast Trust, as well as the ongoing and unacceptable delays in delivering the new maternity hospital. In palliative care, there is too much dependence on charitable fundraising to provide essential services. The recommendations arising from the Muckamore report must also be acted upon in full. There is also the reform of social care, without which we will continue to see patients who are medically fit to leave hospital remaining in beds without the right care and support because it is not available in the community. As we all know, that places further pressure on an already stretched health service. We could go on and on. It paints a pretty depressing picture. However, we all recognise that being funded in line with need could potentially help us stay afloat for a bit longer. Transformation was not supposed to mean simply taking vital services away from local people, and the people whom I represent have a particular concern when they look at what is happening across Northern Ireland, particularly at Causeway Hospital. I represent a constituency in which people, staff and former staff value that hospital. People in Coleraine, Limavady, Ballymoney, Ballycastle and the wider Causeway Coast and Glens area expect the Causeway Hospital to be the place where they can access emergency treatment. When someone is seriously ill, time and distance matter, as does the geography of Northern Ireland.
I make no apology for saying that I support the retention of emergency general surgery at Causeway Hospital. People do not believe that the answer to every pressure facing our health service should automatically be to remove emergency services from a coastal district hospital and concentrate them elsewhere — in this case, 20 miles from major hospitals in Belfast.
Transformation should also be about strengthening local hospitals, how the health service recruits and retains the staff that it needs, and how to make those services sustainable. Those whom I represent do not want to see managed decline or the gradual erosion of services until the Health Department eventually says that the service is no longer viable, like what I saw happen at Roe Valley Hospital in Limavady in 1997. My constituency lost one hospital. We have long memories. We do not wish to see the eventual loss of another.

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

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