Debate contribution: Bangor and Newtownards Minor Injury Units: Closure

Debate contribution by Mr Alan Chambers on 30 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Alan Chambers

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

30 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Bangor and Newtownards Minor Injury Units: Closure

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4487779

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The minor injury unit in Bangor Community Hospital was closed during the COVID pandemic as it was considered that the nursing staff would be better deployed at pressurised inpatient hospitals. The closure was sold as being temporary, and, given the logical reasons offered by the trust, no one raised any serious objections at that point. However, when the trust announced that it would not be reopening the Bangor minor injury unit and would also be closing the unit in Newtownards, it was a different story. There was considerable public concern about that announcement, and the trust commenced a public consultation on its proposals. Many members of the public had little confidence in that process. Those of us who, as public representatives, argued against the trust's proposals were accused of hypocrisy in that we openly supported the transformation of our health and social care systems as laid out in a series of road maps in the Bengoa report but became parish-pump politicians when local closures were proposed. There are two elements of the project that blow out of the water the distractions used by the political closure cheerleaders, who seriously misread the local public mood on the closures. First, on more than one occasion, representatives of the trust pointed out that they had serious staffing issues coming down the line. There was a shortage of the highly qualified nursing practitioners who ran the minor injury unit. We were told that at least three of those nurses were about to retire and that replacements were almost impossible to find. They also stated that they needed more of those nurses in the Ulster Hospital. It was clear from those remarks that the closures were playing no part in transformation, as I understand it, and instead were being used as an opportunity to solve staffing issues at the Ulster Hospital. The second point that the cheerleaders for the closures ignored was a comment by the Health Minister in a previous policy document in which he stated clearly that the creation of an urgent care centre should not mean the closure of a minor injury unit. One of the selling points of transferring the minor injury unit to the Ulster Hospital site was the promise of a consultant-led urgent care centre that would work alongside the A&E department. Where is that urgent care centre? The forecast date for its opening continues to be pushed further down the road. Would it not have made more sense to have postponed the closure of the minor injury units until the urgent care centre was ready to operate? In my view, that did not fit with the trust's immediate need to relocate the staff to the Ulster Hospital site. I and my party have never been opposed to the reconfiguration of the health system, but it needs to be evidence-driven and clearly in the interests of patients. I was not convinced that the closures were made for the right reasons or in the best interests of the North Down public. For my party, service transformation should not be viewed as some sort of catch-all phrase or used as a cloak of convenience. For us, it is about ensuring that patients receive the best care in the best environment and within the best time frame possible. Yet, in this instance, the permanent transfer of the minor injury service to the Ulster Hospital appeared to be driven as much by challenges in recruitment as any other broader strategic decision to co-locate the service. In particular, I was concerned that moving such an important service to the Ulster Hospital site, with all its known issues of congestion, was perhaps going to make the situation even more difficult for local patients and staff, and so it has proved. The fact that it was undertaken during the absence of an Executive and functioning Assembly also meant that there was zero political oversight. It was signed off by a senior civil servant and not by a Minister. Given the passage of time and the well-documented budgetary constraints, I suspect that the Minister has little or no scope to turn back the clock. What he can, perhaps, do is to encourage the trust to expedite the operation of the promised urgent care centre. He could also ask the trust to deliver on the promises of improved public transport connectivity. The situation is a perfect illustration of why it is so important to have an Executive and Assembly in place to provide the political and democratic oversight that, sadly, does not exist when the political institutions are down. In conclusion, I place on record my admiration and appreciation of everyone involved in providing us with healthcare in the current difficult circumstances.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:03 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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