Debate contribution: Health: Vision Statement

Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on 3 June 2024.

MLA

Mr Mike Nesbitt

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

3 June 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Ministerial Statements

Heading

Health: Vision Statement

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4493481

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I do not want to challenge the Deputy Speaker, and let us not quibble, but I thought that there were three.

I thank the Member. I am afraid that I do not particularly agree with her analysis — in my statement, I talked about areas where I will be doing work — but, for the avoidance of doubt, I am talking about reform. While that will be constrained by a lack of funding, as everything else and every other Minister will be, that does not mean that I am saying, "This is what I cannot do". I am saying that I will start the process of reform. At times, that may be controversial and very difficult. It may be particularly difficult, at times, for Members representing specific constituency areas. On top of reform, I am talking about mental health; I am talking about cancer care; I am talking about waiting lists; and I am talking about tackling health inequalities. Those are concentric circles, all overlapping and playing into one another. As for the 52%, as I said earlier, given that, over the past number of months, we consistently argued with the Northern Ireland Office, His Majesty's Treasury and the UK Government that the block grant was not fit for purpose because it was based on population rather than need, that we succeeded in that argument and that the figure is now not 100% but 124% of spending in England, based on assessed or objective need, I do not understand how, when it comes to the Health budget, the Member says not, "What is your need?", but, "You have 52%: suck it up". It may be that 52% is what we need, or it may be that we need more than that to heal the sick and keep the healthy healthy. Again, the health trusts have already come up with solid plans to save a very significant amount of money with cuts that are assessed as low- and medium-impact — that means that there will be an impact on service users and patients — but we will now have to move into higher-impact and catastrophic cuts.

Despite the apprenticeship, I am not there yet in assessing what the high-impact and catastrophic cuts are, and I do not believe that the trusts are either, although they are talking about a significant reduction in hospital beds, in care home beds, in domiciliary care and even a reduction in intensive care unit beds. If we are talking about harm in an ICU, we could be talking about the ultimate harm.

I thank the Member for her question. I see no particular need to undertake a new review. I would like, though, simply to quality assure the recommendations in the current publication. I am in communication with the Children's Commissioner, Chris Quinn, and I want to have an early meeting with stakeholders, not least the commissioner, to talk about how I can quality assure that the recommendations are good. I very much take the Member's point that a significant and tangible difference can sometimes be made without huge amounts of funding, resources or personnel. Let us lift our spirits. Let us say that, despite the challenges — they are severe — we can do things that make it better. Let us not have a council of despair. I am optimistic that we can do this a bit better.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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