Debate contribution: Causeway Hospital: Emergency General Surgery
Debate contribution by Mr Robbie Butler on .
- MLA
- Mr Robbie Butler
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 12 October 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Causeway Hospital: Emergency General Surgery
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5786309
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for his question. I will respond in two parts, if he does not mind. The temporary suspension of emergency general surgery at the South West Acute Hospital remains in place. It is important that people know that the suspension is temporary. The Western Health and Social Care Trust is developing a longer-term vision for services across its hospital network, and it is engaging with staff, patients and the wider community in that space. That work is expected to inform the trust's proposals for the future of the South West Acute Hospital, including emergency general surgery. No permanent decision has been taken. Any proposals for permanent change must follow the Department's guidance, which includes appropriate consultation and the provision of assurance, and they would require my approval. The Member will be well aware that, within two weeks of taking up my post, I visited the SWAH. Contrary to popular belief, although there are challenges in health, I will absolutely go as far as I can to meet people and speak to them face to face, because that is really important in gaining their confidence. The Member makes a really good point. It goes back to my ambition of establishing a social contract whereby health provision is done with people rather than to them. I absolutely respect clinicians' advice. When the clinical advice stacks up and has better patient outcomes at its core and when people are informed that that is the case and can believe it, we have nothing to fear from any wider service transformation. That is the system that we need to embed, because we have finite resource; we have a growing list of health problems; we have an ageing population and a diminishing birth rate; and we have complex comorbidities. All that is making medical provision even more difficult. There are things in train, however, and I am really excited about the neighbourhood model. If we can deliver that, it will deal with a lot of our pressures.
334 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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