Debate contribution: Programme for Government 2024-27

Debate contribution by Mrs Diane Dodds on 3 March 2025.

MLA

Mrs Diane Dodds

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

3 March 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Programme for Government 2024-27

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4826251

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I will focus my remarks on the health section of the Programme for Government. As a DUP MLA who campaigned in the election on reducing waiting lists, I am glad to see that as a tenet of the Programme for Government. The Health Minister often describes health as a personal issue, and he is right. It is the most real and personal issue that our constituents experience, and waiting lists and the length of them are a terrible burden on so many of them. We must acknowledge that, while we complain about waiting lists, there are amazing people in the health service who do amazing work, but they are frustrated by the limitations of their position and in what they can deliver. Most importantly, they are really frustrated by the detrimental impact on their patients. Just recently, I received a letter from the chief executive of the Western Trust that confirmed that the average waiting time for a routine hip replacement was in the region of nine years. That is nine years of deterioration and pain. In the same week, I was speaking to a GP who spoke of a patient with a potential cancer diagnosis. That patient was referred by their GP at the start of February and was told that it would be April before they could be called for an appointment with a consultant. I ask the House to imagine the fear and anxiety for that person, who has to wait that length of time for a consultation. Ultimately, that patient had to gather together some money and make a private appointment, and therein lie the two particular problems with waiting lists. Those are the real-life problems that our constituents face: waits for life-improving issues such as hip and knee replacements; and waits for life-saving cancer care. There are also waits for elective care and emergency interventions. As we all know, around half a million people in Northern Ireland are waiting for a first consultation. The Department must be honest with us and say that it has never met a cancer target in Northern Ireland since it put cancer targets in place. That is not something that any of us in the Chamber should be proud of. Therefore, I welcome the priority and targets in the Programme for Government on this very, very important issue. The ambition to invest a further £135 million to reduce waiting lists and a further £80 million in elective care capacity is welcome, but it will require the Department to step forward with coherent plans in order to do that. Otherwise, those waiting lists will continue in the same vicious circle. We cannot tackle waiting lists without sorting out social care. We have just experienced January and the furore about people waiting in hospital beds who are able to go home but cannot because of a lack of care packages or appropriate placements. If we do not sort out social care, we cannot sort out waiting lists, because we will not have the capacity in our hospitals. Last October, Professor Bengoa told us that, without reform, the Health budget would soon take up 100% of the block grant that comes to Northern Ireland. Currently, it has about 52%. That is just not sustainable, and we have the worst waiting lists in the United Kingdom, with the most expensive per capita costs. Therefore, I also put on record that the Department needs to take more control of its spending. Over the past year, I have been dragging information out of the Department and the Belfast Trust about the new maternity hospital and the proposed new build for a children's hospital. Just last week, I heard further disturbing commentary about the new acute mental health building and the number of repairs that are needed to deal with the structural damage that has been done to it. More money for remedial repairs means less ability to deliver on waiting lists and for our constituents. It will be impossible to sort that out if we do not sort out the issues of investment in our health estate. It means that those who live in the north-west will still be without a new ED in Altnagelvin; my constituents in Upper Bann will see no required investment in the Craigavon site; and we will still have no mother-and-baby unit, despite that being an Executive priority. The health service's greatest asset is its staff. That means those who work in a broken system trying to deliver the best that they can for patients. We have now spent about 10 years trying to get a workforce strategy together for the health service. I do not know what that says about the workforce in the Department. I am told that that strategy may appear in 2025 or possibly 2026, which is when we can look forward to having optimum numbers in the workforce. However, delivering on a workforce strategy will be core to delivering on waiting lists. The commitments in the Programme for Government are good, and the House should welcome them. We want to see waiting lists reduced. That is not a simple problem, however, and we must address the plethora of other issues that surround the issue in order to successfully deliver on it. As the DUP's health spokesperson, I will support a reasonable plan to do all those things, but we need to see that plan from the Health Minister.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:07 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification