Debate contribution: Waiting Lists: Effect on Winter Preparedness

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 20 January 2026.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

20 January 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Waiting Lists: Effect on Winter Preparedness

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5348384

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Winter comes every year and is not a surprise. It should not catch the Minister or the Executive off guard. However, each and every year, including this winter, the Executive act as though the annual winter healthcare crisis is unprecedented. There is nothing that I disagree with in the Member's motion. I thank him for moving it and for his opening comments. However, my amendment adds to the motion. I will expand upon that. The motion correctly deplores the disgraceful pressures being faced by patients and staff in emergency departments. Those pressures are entirely foreseeable. Plans that are published in mid-October or November are, as has been said, too little and too late. This year, we are in the same position. The corridor care, as it is euphemistically called, is a visual manifestation of the disastrous state of our health service. People in medical crisis are being treated in corridors and in staff changing rooms and being denied the dignity and respect that they deserve. Unfortunately, that has become completely normalised. Last winter, one patient waited for 19 hours in an ambulance before hospital admission. People are routinely spending up to a day in A&E waiting rooms before seeing a doctor. That is completely unacceptable. Last January, over 45% of patients were waiting for more than four hours in A&E, which is the worst performance across these islands. People here in the North are now four times more likely to wait for planned care than in England. We have 127,000 people waiting for over a year for a first outpatient appointment. That is completely unacceptable. The figure that was mentioned is worth repeating: 1,400 excess deaths occurred here that were linked to long A&E waits, and that is double the rate in Scotland, as has been said, despite our smaller population. The system is killing people. That is the blunt reality.

At the root of the crisis is the systematic degradation of our healthcare workforce. The costs of hospital care have risen by 28% compared with just 8% in England. None of that reaches the workers' pockets. Healthcare staff have had to fight to get an insulting 3·6% pay offer from October — not backdated to April, as has been the case in England — and have been told to just accept it. Is it any wonder that staff morale is at rock bottom and people are leaving the sector and, in many cases, the country? We have 35% more registered nurses per capita than England, but we have longer waits and worse outcomes because the system is haemorrhaging experienced staff. The Executive's solution is privatisation in the form of handing contracts to private — not independent: private — providers. In the past decade, the Executive has paid £125 million of public money to one such hospital alone. That is outlandish. Waiting list initiatives funnel public money into private healthcare companies' coffers, once again throwing good money after bad. That is a dead-end strategy. You cannot solve a crisis in public healthcare by enriching private profiteers. Every pound spent on private sector contracts is a pound that could employ nurses, retain experienced doctors or reduce the crushing workload that is driving staff away. The solution is staring us in the face: stop privatisation. Stop spending public money on private healthcare companies for waiting list initiatives and, instead, invest directly in our health service and its workforce. Pay healthcare workers properly, and recruit and retain staff by making healthcare jobs attractive again. The Executive must build capacity in our public system rather than subsidising private profits. Last year, the House passed a similar amendment. I hope and trust that Members will do the same today. We have known what the problems are for years. The question is this: do the Minister and Executive have the political will to fix those problems, or will we continue the predictable cycle of crises and private-sector profiteering while patients suffer and workers burn out? People demand and deserve better. I will just expand on some of the figures. In the UK, there has been a 525-fold increase in the number of people who receive what is called "corridor care", which is treatment on trolleys. I suspect that the figure here is higher. I hope that the Minister can provide that figure today. I have lost count of how many times over the winter this year and in previous years I have seen stories on social media of people and their loved ones waiting 12 hours or more in a corridor to get appropriate treatment. That is completely unacceptable. Over two thirds of nurses with the RCN have reported delivering care in "overcrowded and unsuitable places" every day. That is not only unfair and unjust for patients but totally unsustainable for the people who work in the sector and for the sector more generally. The reason why we are in that situation is simple: long-term divestment in our NHS over the past 15 years or so. We have seen A&Es closed and run down. We have witnessed beds being pulled out of hospitals and not replaced. Disgracefully, we have seen repeated attempts to take advantage of our healthcare workers and deny them proper pay and pay parity in a timely manner. As has been mentioned, we also have a situation where people who are medically fit for discharge are unable to leave the hospital or healthcare setting because there is no care package in place or available. Those issues are all completely connected. Despite the best efforts of underpaid care workers, the private, for-profit model does not work for patients or people who work in the sector. Patients often receive 15-minute appointments and do not receive the detailed one-to-one care that is required. Workers are not paid appropriately for travel and are out of pocket because of low wages more generally. It is bonkers that we have such a disconnected health system. Much is made about silo mentalities and the need for people to work together in this Building, but, when it comes to that part of the health service, that is not addressed or implemented. Instead of throwing hundreds of millions of pounds of public money — good money — to the private healthcare sector, we should use that money to invest properly in publicly funded Health and Social Care workers and primary care. We do not have armies of healthcare workers in place, working for trusts, who can keep people healthy and out of hospital or work directly with patients who are ready to leave hospital or other healthcare settings in order to provide and put in place a proper care package. That is why I have tabled the amendment. I hope and trust that Members will support it.

1,130 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:13 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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