Debate contribution: Craigavon Area Hospital: Redevelopment

Debate contribution by Mrs Linda Dillon on 1 April 2025.

MLA: Mrs Linda Dillon
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 1 April 2025
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Craigavon Area Hospital: Redevelopment
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4876588

Text

I thank the proposer of the motion for bringing it before the House. To be honest, this is a conversation that we should not still be having, 10 years after the master plan was developed. Craigavon Area Hospital had been crying out for redevelopment for many years before that. As we know, the master plan was finished in 2016, and, since then, we have had report after report and warning after warning but no action. I have raised this with the Department over the past three years. Even when we did not have a sitting Assembly, I raised with the permanent secretary at that time the issue that Craigavon hospital was in dire need of development. The state of the hospital estate affects the care and outcomes for patients. That is the most important part of this. A hospital is only a building, at the end of the day. What matters are the outcomes and the care that people get when they are in those buildings. We know that the care and outcomes for people have been affected in Craigavon Area Hospital by the state of the hospital.
That is no reflection on the staff — I make that clear — or on their efforts in working in the confined space that they have.
I have dealt with cases of patients with open wounds, at serious risk of infection and, if they were to contract infection, death, being cared for in open wards because of extremely limited access to single or isolated rooms. You cannot have someone come out of surgery, vulnerable and in recovery, only to put them in an outdated, overcrowded ward with high infection risk; that is not how a modern health service should work. We have heard from the trust that there is simply not enough suitable space for people to recover in a safe environment. Even basic facilities such as toilets and showers are stretched. That is not just inconvenient; it is dangerous. Infection risk is heightened, staff are under constant pressure and patients do not get the experience or the outcomes that they deserve. We are well aware of the excess deaths that occurred in the Southern Trust during the COVID outbreak due to the lack of suitable facilities. As the Member who spoke previously outlined, those were due to the lack of isolation facilities and to poor ventilation. That is some reflection on us as a First World country. Minister, this is not just about Craigavon Area Hospital. It speaks to a bigger issue with planning and investment across the entire health service. When services are added or transformed, the facilities must follow; in fact, if we were doing it right, the facilities would be there first. We cannot separate transformation from infrastructure. Reconfiguration plans must go hand in glove with development and capital planning. We, in this Building, have said much about transformation. Before Christmas, the Minister brought back Professor Bengoa — he was right to do so — who reminded us all that, without major change within the next 15 years, the Department of Health will consume the entire Budget of the Executive; now, that means within the next 14 years. He is not wrong, but transformation has to be done properly: it has to be strategic, well thought through and properly consulted on in an open and transparent manner, and it then needs to be implemented. It is time to look not just at how much is being spent but at where and how it is being spent. Minister, as our leader in Health, you are ultimately responsible. We need to see strong leadership and well-thought-through plans. Trusts must be supported to deliver good services in fit-for-purpose accommodation and be held accountable by your Department for how they spend that money.
Thank you. That is exactly my point in talking about having well-thought-through plans and ensuring that our development plans go hand in glove with our reconfiguration plans and about what our hospital estate should look like; you are absolutely right. The Department needs to hold trusts accountable. That accountability matters because, when things go wrong, it is patients and staff who pay the price. Let me be clear: I am not here just to criticise, and neither, as a collective, is the Health Committee. Minister, we want to work with you, we want to see progress, we want to see redevelopment delivered, and we want to see you succeed because, if you succeed, the people of the Southern Trust area and all our people across the North and the wider health service will be better off. In order to support and work with you and your officials, we need to see genuine transparency, openness and clarity about what you are doing and why. I hope that, in your response today, you will finally give us a time frame for the delivery of modern, safe and fit-for-purpose facilities so that the people of the Southern Trust area and all those who are served by the Southern Trust — they come from across the North — who will rely on care provided in Craigavon Area Hospital in the coming years get the care that they deserve in buildings that are fit for that care to be given in.

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

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