Debate contribution: Waiting Lists: Action Plan

Debate contribution by Mr Justin McNulty on 20 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Justin McNulty

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

20 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Waiting Lists: Action Plan

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4380739

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I support the motion and the amendment. This is an extremely important debate. I thank Mrs Dodds and Mr Robinson for tabling the motion. I also thank my party colleagues Colin McGrath, Sinéad McLaughlin and Patsy McGlone for their important amendment. Let us make no mistake about it: waiting lists and waiting times for health and social care services in the North are not just a crisis; they are a scandal. Throughout today's debate, let us endeavour to reject any assertion that the crisis has been brought about as a consequence of the pandemic. As the motion rightly points out, we have not met a formal waiting-time target in the North since 2014. That is six years prior to the onset of the pandemic. The statistics are startling, scary and sad. People and families are languishing while trying to manage their pain and despair. However, I want to guard against the urge to complain about the problem and instead focus on identifying solutions. One of the most obvious and inescapable solutions to the need to revive our health service and address the crisis in waiting lists centres around pay and conditions for health service staff. Whether it is on burnout, sickness rates, attrition levels, forced migration, patient and staff safety or the inability to attract necessary personnel, health service workers are being failed. I have seen that clearly in my constituency, where there was an exodus of medical specialists from Daisy Hill Hospital because the Southern Trust stonewalled them after they raised legitimate concerns about management decisions and genuine grievances about the terms and conditions of their working arrangements. The most critical part of the debate centres around our NHS staff. Without them, nothing works. If they are not looked after, patients and their clinical outcomes will be impacted. With that in mind, the Assembly and Executive should tackle the most fundamental issues first. We know that staff are at breaking point. That is why junior doctors have voted for strike action, why more nurses leave the system every year than enter it and why bright brains and hard workers take their qualifications and go to practise in the UK, the Republic, Australia, Canada and elsewhere. I wholeheartedly welcome the Executive's commitment to fund the public-sector pay award, but we need to do better than play catch-up with pay packets. We need decisive action and ambition from the Executive to make the North the most rewarding place on these islands to be a healthcare worker. I fully appreciate that that will be a long-term and considerable undertaking for the Executive, but there is no escaping the fact that we need radical action to address the crisis in our health service. If we need radical action in the long term, we need sensible action in the short term. The most effective step that the Executive can immediately take is to reinstate the cross-border healthcare directive, as stated in my party's, the SDLP's, amendment. That would allow people languishing on Northern Ireland's waiting lists to access treatment in the Republic as a matter of urgency. It would help to remove pain and restore patients' dignity and quality of life far more quickly than if we were to try to muddle through on solutions that have already been tried or that are rehashed. Waiting lists in the North are not just a crisis; they are a scandal. Everyone is watching this place with hope and goodwill. The people we represent expect an awful lot more than the same old Stormont solutions branded differently and trotted out for show. We have heard and will undoubtedly hear more about the transformation and fundamental reform of the health service. I respectfully contend that fundamental reform should begin at the fundamental level of pay and conditions and with care and compassion shown for our health service staff. If we get the basics right, we will have a foundation to build on, but, if we continue to pay our health service staff poverty wages and expect them to get excited when we sign off on a pay rise that is two years late, none of us can be surprised when doctors, nurses, allied health professionals (AHPs) and medical specialists vote with their feet and take themselves and their talents to a jurisdiction that will pay them what they are worth. Who could blame them? I will finish by saying go raibh míle, míle maith agaibh

to our Health and Social Care workers.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:40 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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