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 4493505

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank Mr McGlone for his opening remarks. I repeat what I said at the beginning of my statement earlier: I extend my sympathies and condolences to our colleague Colm Gildernew and the wider family on their tragic loss. I am aware of the issues with community pharmacies. I visited one in my constituency recently and got a briefing on such issues as clawback on the cost of some medicines versus the reimbursement, so I get that. I get some of the other issues too. I do not want to do what we have always done; I want things to be done better. I am looking at social care, primary care and GP surgeries. I think that everybody acknowledges that multidisciplinary teams work and deliver outcomes. Not only can community pharmacies do more; they stand ready to do more and want to do more. It is a question of how we facilitate that. As I said, that is all within a big jigsaw with all of the moving parts. I promise the Member that it is certainly on my radar — it will not be ignored — but the actual resolution, within the big picture, is still to be worked out.

I thank the Member for his question, which speaks to the last conversation that I had before I came into the Chamber. I have seen options for bids, but I have not signed off on them. However, I imagine that that will happen before 6.00 pm today. The difficulty is that, if we bid for everything that we want, there is the danger that people will say, "Oh, there they go again. They're after the entire cake rather than a slice of it". The danger in not bidding for everything is that it will seem that we are not sending out the right signal, which is, "This is everything we need to keep people safe, to keep the healthy healthy and to heal the sick". There has to be a bit of a judgement call. That includes being aware that there is not a single Minister of the Northern Ireland Executive who is getting all the finance and resources that they need. There has to be a priority. I am conscious that my predecessor made the point that, although we might say that we allocate budgets to Departments on the basis of an analysis of risk and of which cuts might pose the greatest risk to keeping people safe — clearly, that is not just in the Health Department — he did not believe that an equal measure was being applied. He believed that Departments were using different measures. There is still a conversation to be had in that area. All I can say is that the bids or bid, depending on whether we put in one bid or submit bids individually, will be significant and will pose another great problem for the Minister of Finance in particular. I met her earlier today. I have no doubt that, if she could, she would give everybody what they want. I am in no doubt she is doing her best to unlock the Treasury's purse strings. I assure Members that I look forward to working with her and other Executive colleagues to get the best outcomes that we can. They will not be the ideal outcomes, because we are not in that place, but my objective is to minimise harm and to do as much good as we can.

578 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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