Debate contribution: Waiting Lists: Action Plan

Debate contribution by Ms Paula Bradshaw on 20 February 2024.

MLA

Ms Paula Bradshaw

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

20 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Waiting Lists: Action Plan

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4380702

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I support the motion and the amendment. I will focus on what we have learnt from the Audit Office report, and from other reports and evidence, about how we can do things differently. The Audit Office report refers to the need for extra money, and we need to be clear about one thing, which is that the Department of Health already spends approximately £4,000 for every person in Northern Ireland. I appreciate that we have an ageing population with multi-morbidity and therefore more expensive treatments, but we have to recognise that we cannot continue to have a greater percentage of the overall budget share, so we need to use our money more efficiently. Can the Minister outline — if not today, at some time in the future — how he will ensure greater financial accountability of commissioned services in our trusts? Those who sat on the previous Health Committee, and others who are watching the debate, will know that if a trust is given a certain amount of money for, for example, 30 orthopaedic surgeries, and it delivers only 20, it does not have to give back the money for the 10 that it did not deliver. I have no doubt that the trust then uses the money efficiently and for good ends, but there is no accountability and transparency of its use of the money. That leads me on to my second point, which concerns the use of locums. I met the former chief executive of the Belfast Heath and Social Care Trust in, I think, 2016. He said at that time that we needed legislation here in Northern Ireland to put a cap on the amount of money that is spent on locums. That was eight years ago. I very much take Colin McGrath's point about the stop-start nature of our politics here, but we need to look at the amount that we are spending on our locums. My third point is about the effective use of our consultants' time. As people will be aware, consultants are given a certain number of slots each week that they have to deliver. If they use one of those slots to travel to Enniskillen, and then spend some time doing work there before travelling back, two slots that week will have been lost. We need to look at the better use of our consultants' time. We have heard a lot of figures being quoted today about how many people are on waiting lists, but we are talking about cases rather than people. Some people may be on three or four waiting lists. I would appreciate it if the Minister could tell us how he is going to use that information and bring it forward so that we have a far clearer picture. It is ludicrous that such a percentage of our population is on waiting lists. We need better clarity around how that information is collected and presented. My party will support the amendment about the cross-border healthcare directive, but people need to be clear: that means that we will be using public money from Northern Ireland to pay private hospitals in the South. I have many constituents who are delighted about that scheme and want it to be brought back. I want to see it being brought back as well. However —.

No, I am going to allow an intervention from the proposer of the amendment. Is he also in favour of extending that scheme so that anybody who is on a waiting list can use any private provider across the island, North or South? Is that what the amendment is about?

Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker. Will the Minister refer to that? I have never received a straight answer about that from the Department of Health. If we are OK with sending money to the South — I have no problem with that if it gets people from my constituency off waiting lists — why do we not afford the same opportunity to private providers in the North to drive down our waiting lists? I would like an answer on that. There are two final areas that I will focus on. My colleague Nuala McAllister briefly referenced them. These are very crude figures, but it costs £700 a month for domiciliary care, £700 a week for a place in a care home and £700 a night for a hospital bed. I would like the Minister at some stage — probably not today — to bring forward his plans for how we are going to bolster our social care sector here in Northern Ireland. I have no doubt that that needs a lot more investment, but I would like to see those plans. We had Power to People in 2016. Although great work has been done by the departmental officials etc, we need firm action. I agree with Alan Chambers's point in that regard: let us stop talking about it and get on with it. We, as a party, want to see transformation. We want to see Bengoa delivered. We have always very much supported the elective care framework, but we want to see the long-awaited hospital reconfiguration design plan. We need that consulted on, and we need to bring forward the plans. We need action, not words.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:38 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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