Member's statement: South West Acute Hospital: Emergency General Surgery

Member's statement by Ms Diana Armstrong on 1 December 2025.

MLA

Ms Diana Armstrong

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

1 December 2025

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

South West Acute Hospital: Emergency General Surgery

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5268579

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Last Thursday, the Health Committee met in the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) in Enniskillen. Whilst Parliament Buildings is, no doubt, a hugely impressive location to work from, I have found, in my relatively short time as an MLA, that the opportunity to engage directly with organisations and to visit their premises is just as important. I am certain that the members of the Health Committee were hugely impressed with the size of the South West Acute Hospital and the many opportunities that exist there. It remains one of the best and most modern health facilities in Northern Ireland. I was alarmed, however, by the report, subsequent to the meeting with the Western Trust, that it had apparently told the Health Committee:

"When a service is paused, there is an inevitability this won't be back."

That was a shocking, sweeping statement, but it perhaps also revealed what many had long suspected was the belief of some. Equally galling was the trust's shirking of responsibility when, after being asked a fairly straightforward question by a journalist about emergency general surgery, its immediate reply was:

"That's a decision for the Minister."

To be clear, the review of general surgery set out the standards for emergency general surgery, but, importantly, it did not state which hospitals should and should not deliver it. No matter the reason behind that latest attempt at smoke and mirrors, it is for the Western Trust to determine how to configure its general surgical service to meet those standards. That is a matter of fact, and the trust needs to be careful in its noticeable efforts to rewrite that. After the shambles of its botched consultation process in July, I thought that the Western Trust would have learned some lessons, and, for a while, I thought that it had, when it issued an apology in October admitting its multitude of failings. Recent weeks, however, which have seen the trust enter into an unnecessary public spat about who should even have chaired an upcoming meeting, combined with last week's comments, have revealed a regression in the trust's approach and attitude. Earlier this year, the Minister took the highly unusual decision to publicly intervene, yet it appears that the trust is even now beginning to deviate from the clear instruction that it was given about coming up with a focused vision plan for the SWAH. Public confidence matters, and, regrettably, the Western Trust is still doing little to restore it. That urgently needs to change. Since becoming an MLA, my priority has always been to the people of Fermanagh and South Tyrone and their well-being. I will always seek to do what is right for my community and challenge what I see as failings.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:02 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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