Debate contribution: Woodlawn House, Dungannon: Post-19 Adult Respite Provision

Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on 14 October 2025.

MLA

Mr Mike Nesbitt

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

14 October 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Woodlawn House, Dungannon: Post-19 Adult Respite Provision

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5181304

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will cut straight to the chase. Mr Gildernew asked whether I will visit Woodlawn. Yes, of course I will. I will visit it and speak to the residents, the workforce, the carers and the parents. I get out and about every week. That is important to me. I can sit behind that desk in Castle Buildings doing paperwork and having internal meetings, but it is not real until I get out into health and social care delivery settings. I will be more than happy to do that. My diary is pretty chock-a-block, so it might take a bit of time, but it is important for me to do that. Mr Gildernew mentioned a meeting. Is that next week?

I take it that that is for the consultation that we are doing on the learning disability service model. That is important. I encourage everybody who has an interest in that to attend one of those public meetings, because that may set the template for how we do business for a good number of years to come. I speak to service users a lot. I speak to mums and the workforce that works in that area and to officials in the Department. When I speak to people about the state of the service, there is a common theme. It can be summed up in one word: fragility. It is really fragile. When people go off on sick leave or maternity leave, meaning that the workforce is unavailable, it is fragile, and it breaks down. If somebody with severe learning difficulties comes from out of the blue and needs residential care rather than short break care, the entire home, potentially, will then be closed to those needing short breaks. I agree with Mr Gildernew in that I am concerned about families and burnout. He knows, as I do, that, for those parents in particular, the biggest concern is, "What happens when I'm gone? Will my son or my daughter be OK?". That is what keeps them up at night. Of course it does, because those are their loved ones. Mrs Dodds will have to write to me about the £13 million that she mentioned, because I will not be able to give her chapter and verse on that. She is not, however, shy about writing to the Minister of Health.

Some of the circumstances of Woodlawn House are unique, but a lot of this is universal, based on the fact that it is a very fragile service in that it takes only very little of an unexpected nature to happen to throw it into chaos. Mr Gildernew said that it would be great if we had spare capacity, not least in the workforce. In an ideal world, of course, it would be great if we had beds, facilities and workforce to be tapped into when one of those things occurs. If, however, I were to go back to the Department —.

I will give way in a moment. If, given the shortfall in the Health budget, I were to go back to the Department and suggest that we start having capacity sitting around and waiting, I think that I would be taken in for a random drugs test. I will give way.

I very much appreciate the clarification, and I apologise for misinterpreting. I thought that you meant that we would have additional capacity. Let me give an overview of the challenges that are faced by Woodlawn House in particular, of the action taken by the Southern Trust and my officials, and of the wider strategic work that is under way to address the clear gap between capacity and demand for short breaks for people with a learning disability. I will be clear to families, because they may well be listening, and to the people whom we support that we need to increase provision in Woodlawn House and, indeed, in overall residential short break capacity across Northern Ireland. A model and a plan have been developed to achieve that regional change. That is the learning disability service model that I have just mentioned, which is out to consultation. Woodlawn House is a nursing-led statutory facility that gives short breaks for adults with a learning disability. The purpose-built home has eight beds and includes a separate unit that can offer support to those with the most complex needs. It opened in 2008, and, since then, it has played a really important role in supporting adults with learning disabilities who have complex medical needs. That is why it is nursing-led. Of course, there can be a lack of alternatives when provision is impacted on. I am aware of Woodlawn's temporary closure in December 2023, which was to accommodate an emergency placement, as I said earlier. I will come back to that. Since March of this year, Woodlawn House has operated at a reduced capacity due to a staffing shortage. That is at the core of the issues there. At the time when the matter was escalated to the Department, the Southern Trust was reporting a staffing deficit — this is quite shocking — of 60% to 70%. There were multifaceted reasons, including staff being lost to sickness absence, maternity and career progression, but it was a really significant staffing gap, and, of course, it resulted in a reduction of service that was necessary to maintain the safety of the staff and of the people whom we were supporting. It was a regrettable decision, but we had to be mindful that Woodlawn supports people with very complex needs, and they require a fully staffed, multidisciplinary team. Since that point, the trust has undertaken several exercises to address the staff deficit, restore provision and, where possible, find alternative placements across other residential and nursing units. Officials have received an update from the trust on the current position and the work ahead to fully remobilise the service. Three additional band 5 nurses have been recruited, and they took up their posts this month. That is good news. The trust also used bank and agency staff. However, regulations and standards are clear that the service needs to be delivered by substantive staff to ensure continuity of care and reflect the complex medical needs that Woodlawn supports. The trust has plans for further band 3 recruitment, and an open day will be held in Woodlawn on 16 October, which is this Thursday. Band 2 trainee posts are also being introduced to recruit individuals who are keen to work in the care sector. It is envisaged that they will progress to become band 3 nursing assistants or healthcare assistants in due course. Additional processes have been put in place to promote the safety of the people who are supported and of the staff. Enhanced governance structures, senior management visibility and staff engagement have been put in place to better understand the staffing issues and to inform changes to the services and to future recruitment. Weekly allocation meetings are in place to ensure that provision is prioritised on a clinical and social basis. That is not a desirable position, but it is needed to ensure that people can access a short break where that need cannot be met elsewhere. Families were engaged in the process and will continue to be engaged. The trust has commissioned additional beds in other units. Those will not be suitable for all families, but they have been offered to and accepted by some. Lastly, where possible, self-directed support has been used to provide alternative support to families in lieu of short breaks. I assure Members that my Department will continue to monitor and request regular updates from the trust on progress towards restoring full service delivery at pace, but that has to happen with a safe and appropriate level of staffing. In my remaining time, I will turn to the impact of societal unrest on our international colleagues. I say to Mr Tennyson that we have yet to bottom out the potential impact of that, but, clearly, it gives me huge concern about the retention of international colleagues but also about their recruitment. We have recruited a lot of doctors from India to the Southern Trust in particular; I met a lot of them at Daisy Hill Hospital, and there are some who work at Craigavon Area Hospital, and they are really good people. If you are sitting in India or somewhere else, and you are asked by a recruitment campaign whether you would like to come to Northern Ireland, you will go on your social media or use your search engine and see that it is not a very attractive proposition. To have to put a sign in your doorway or front window that says, "I am a Filipino", or, "I am working for Health and Social Care", is truly biblical. It is the Passover, literally, to say, "Pass me by, please: I am OK". That is no way to run a health service. I will finish where I began. I look forward to working with Mr Gildernew and to visiting Woodlawn and speaking to the appropriate people.

1,518 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:37 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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