Debate contribution: Health Service Transformation: Funding

Debate contribution by Mr Alan Robinson on 17 September 2024.

MLA

Mr Alan Robinson

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

17 September 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Health Service Transformation: Funding

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4537020

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I again address the growing crisis in our health service — a crisis that touches every corner of Northern Ireland and affects every one of us in the Assembly and, more importantly, the people whom we all represent. Our health service continues to be at breaking point. As is said ad nauseum, urgent action and financial resources are needed to address it. Current hospital waiting times are simply unacceptable. We have reached a critical juncture where thousands of patients are being forced to wait far too long for their first consultant-led outpatient appointment.

Between June 2023 and June 2024, we witnessed a staggering 9·4% increase in the number of patients who are waiting for such appointments across the Northern, Southern and Western Health and Social Care Trusts. That is a reflection not just of the strain on the health system but of the human toll that it is taking on people. More than 340,000 people are now on a waiting list for a first outpatient appointment. That is just in four of the five health trusts. Families are being left in limbo, patients are left suffering and healthcare professionals are left with an impossible task. At the Health Committee, we have been told that one of the most difficult issues that a GP must face is referring someone onto a waiting list, knowing that their patient will be on that waiting list for many years to come and that they will be helpless to improve their chances of an urgent appointment. Just recently, we received correspondence from a representative of a large group of parents and carers from across Northern Ireland who have children with complex medical needs. Those children are awaiting percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) insertion surgery. It can be done only at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children. That waiting list has now increased to five years. Around 90 children in the Province are awaiting that surgery. Many of those children are suffering the consequences of long-term nasogastric feeding. The fact is that they might not survive five years to get that particular surgery. The stats on cancer care are equally concerning. As of the first quarter of 2024, the percentage of patients who were starting treatment following the decision to treat was 86·5%, which is significantly below the target of 98%. For urgent GP referrals, only 29·8% of patients began treatment within the target of 62 days, in stark contrast to the 95% target. The percentage of patients who were seen by a breast cancer specialist within 14 days was 34·1%, far below the target of 100%. Those figures are not just numbers; they represent patients, our constituents, who are waiting far too long for critical treatment. We are all concerned that, despite the urgency of the situation, the stabilisation package that was provided by the Government in 2023 falls way short and will not take forward the transformation agenda that we all need. That has been borne out by the Fiscal Council, which has said that the package will be swallowed up by public-sector pay rises. The DUP is on record as saying that it fell short and did not provide for a long-term outcome. While we all want to see a long-term, fair funding plan, we also need to see a detailed plan from the Health Minister on the future of our hospitals, including the Causeway Hospital, which, on the face of it, looks to be a case of managing downgrade. The health service has always been the pride of our nation, built on the principle that no one should suffer because they cannot afford care. That principle is now gone. Six months ago, in a previous debate on waiting lists, I said:

"All of us can give accounts of people whom we represent who have no other option but to part with their life savings or to borrow many thousands of pounds for urgent treatment, forcing themselves into a world of debt. These are good, decent, salt-of-the-earth people who may have worked themselves to the bone all their days and paid into the NHS only to be let down. ... [Some] part with money that they can ill afford, [but many] others cannot ... Those people descend into greater ill health, which, ultimately, becomes more complex and expensive to treat. Some even die. That is the stark reality".

It has got worse since I said those words six months ago. I have also talked in the House about my own health issues. I suffer from chronic pain. I have been in and out of hospital constantly. I am on multiple waiting lists. The motion is timely because I stand here in extreme pain, even with potent tablets. I am on a waiting list for treatment. I have been on that waiting list for so long that I cannot even remember how long ago I was referred. It is now into years. I stand here with a condition that will not kill me. Thousands of our constituents are on waiting lists with conditions that, ultimately, without timely intervention, they will die from. We must turn that tide. I look forward to the Health Minister's comments.

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

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