Debate contribution: Ambulance Service: Patient Handover Times
Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on .
- MLA
- Mr Mike Nesbitt
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 27 January 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Ambulance Service: Patient Handover Times
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4759136
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for his point. It is entirely regrettable that that is one of the symptoms of the blockage in the flow through our acute hospitals, and I am determined to address it. The answer is not simply in more staff or more ambulances. The answer is not just in bigger EDs with more staff, and it is not about more beds in acute hospitals. It is about the flow, and, as the Member knows, the biggest obstacle this winter has been the lack of community care, whether that is in care homes or through domiciliary packages. We have to work hard on that. Like nurses, doctors and allied health professionals in EDs, ambulance crews did not sign up to sit with, often, an elderly patient in their vehicle outside an emergency department, potentially overnight. Things are being done to improve the service. The Member will be aware of the regional control centre at Knockbracken. I visited it a few weeks ago for the daily 12.00 noon call, when staff try to coordinate the trusts. Collaboration is building. The trusts need to trust one another. You do not want one trust saying, "We will take some of your patients and take some of the load off you", unless it can be absolutely confident that the other trust is not simply saying, "We do not need to try any harder. We can just rely on our colleagues across the trust border". It is stark to look at the screens in the regional control centre and see that ambulances are waiting 12, 14 or 16 hours. Often, the patient is in their 70s or 80s or even their 90s.
279 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.93).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.03 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.04 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.93 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.51 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.48 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:50 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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