Debate contribution: Health Service Transformation: Funding

Debate contribution by Mr Danny Donnelly on 17 September 2024.

MLA

Mr Danny Donnelly

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

17 September 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Health Service Transformation: Funding

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4537292

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker. I thank all Members who contributed to the debate. The tone of the debate was quite right. I thank my DUP Health Committee colleagues Mrs Dodds and Mr Robinson for tabling the motion. We proposed the amendment for the reasons that were outlined by my party colleague Nuala McAllister. In my winding-up speech, I will refer to some of those and to some comments that we heard during the debate.

The first addition in our amendment was to agree:

"that delivering the ambitions of health and social care transformation will require political leadership and an emphasis on service quality".

That was referred to by Mark H Durkan as he alluded to Northern Ireland's not being a big place, saying that you could

"travel for two hours or wait for two years".

We do have to focus on quality over geography. That is very important. Our services are provided by specialist units, and one hospital will deliver higher-quality outcomes. We know that, and that prevents unnecessary duplication. We will see that going forward. Liz Kimmins referenced Professor Bengoa's burning platform analogy from 2016. It is notable that Professor Bengoa will return to the Northern Ireland Assembly in a couple of weeks, so it will be interesting to see what his consideration of our current situation is eight years on. Obviously, there are still a lot of challenges, and the platform has burned significantly since then. That is where we are, unfortunately. Alan Chambers referenced the elective care framework, which, obviously, has begun to show some success. We are starting to see waiting lists come down in certain areas of care delivery in Northern Ireland because of the implementation of those. Alan also mentioned the inability of the Assembly to deliver a multi-year Budget, and I was encouraged by the Minister's comments about his hopes for a multi-year Budget in, I think, 2026-27. I hope that those ambitions will be realised, and we will do what we can to support the Minister in that. Linda Dillon mentioned shared services on the island of Ireland. Linda will be aware that the Health Committee had a meeting with the Health Committee from the Oireachtas — I think you were there, Linda — and discussed a lot of the shared services that are available, particularly around cancer, and that is something that we are working together on. It is very good to see that.

Yes, certainly.

Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker. I certainly agree with that, and it is something that we can work together on. Alan Robinson reiterated the failure to meet treatment targets, and it is appalling. I think Mrs Dodds referred to it as "obscene", and I agree. Mr Robinson highlighted the fact that the people to whom we refer in the targets are not just numbers but our constituents. I have personal experience of constituents who are spending their life savings and borrowing money to pay for surgery. They are being forced into the independent sector to buy surgery that they should get on a timely basis in our health service. That was a well-made point. Órlaithí Flynn talked about the health inequalities that women face and the shocking statistic that some women can expect to live 14 fewer years in good health than those in more prosperous areas. That is a very shocking statement, and she made the point strongly. Thank you, Órlaithí. Timothy Gaston referred to the growth of the waiting lists during the years of stop-start government, and he is right. Timothy is not here, but he is right that we have gone on and off. We should be aware in the Chamber that on-off government makes delivery of transformation in the health service impossible. If the Assembly is not functioning, we cannot deliver transformation, and we certainly cannot deliver multi-year Budgets. The Minister said that the health service should be effective and timely for all, and it absolutely should. The gap between funded capacity and demand that we see is being exacerbated by problems in the health service, and we see things getting worse in some areas. There are areas where things are improving and people are getting more treatments. That is to be welcomed, and we want to support the roll-out of things such as multidisciplinary team (MDT) services in GP practices across Northern Ireland. While they are not a silver bullet for GP practices, they ease the burden on those practices. I know that GP practices have been happy to hear of the extended roll-out of that and of the surgical hubs. For those reasons, I encourage all Members to support our amendment, which improves the motion and states that the Assembly will provide political leadership to deliver the best outcomes for our health service, work with relevant local sectors and seek to progress agreed multi-year Budgets.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:11 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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