Debate contribution: Day Centre Transport Services: East Belfast
Debate contribution by Ms Joanne Bunting on .
- MLA
- Ms Joanne Bunting
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 3 March 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Adjournment
- Heading
- Day Centre Transport Services: East Belfast
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5435119
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise a matter of significance and import that has caused considerable distress to some of the most vulnerable adults and families in my constituency of East Belfast and, by extension, to Health and Social Care (HSC) staff. I welcome the Minister of Health's presence this afternoon.
The issue concerns ongoing and unacceptable transport failures that affect service users of the Edgcumbe Day Centre in East Belfast. Members will be aware that Edgcumbe is the only full-time day centre in the whole of East Belfast. It has over 100 users per day. For many people, every day from the age of 19 until they pass away, it provides their only social activity and interaction beyond that with their immediate family. It is a truly wonderful facility with amazing staff, to whom I pay tribute, and inspirational service users, who have varying levels of need or disability or require additional help, support or therapeutic services. It is not exaggeration or hyperbole to state that the centre is a lifeline for those users and for those who love them and care for them. I believe that it is accurate to state that, for everybody concerned, it is a part of their day to which they look forward and on which they rely. Indeed, for many users, parents and guardians, it is fundamental to their physical and mental well-being. It provides structure, routine, social connection and vital support. For parents and carers, it offers much-needed respite — in some cases, the only respite that they receive. Some families have been linked to Edgcumbe for more than 20 years, so it has become like a second home: a safe place and a place of refuge and enjoyment. Whilst the issue has been ongoing for some time — indeed, parents wrote to former Minister Swann in 2019 to no avail — over recent months, families have found themselves at the end of their tether because the transport services that they depend on have been failing repeatedly. Buses do not come or are cancelled. Parents are then left with no notice or short notice and no alternative but to make last-minute travel arrangements — in many cases, paying for taxis from their own pocket. For the people who avail themselves of Edgcumbe, especially those with complex medical needs, disruption to routine has a hugely negative impact. Given that some users have specialist wheelchairs or other equipment, private cars and taxis, including taxis for people with disabilities, are unable to transport them. For those users, there is no workaround at all, so, when transport fails, they simply cannot attend and, consequently, miss out entirely. The crux of the issue is that a driver shortage in the trust is resulting in a number of the children and adults not being able to avail themselves of the service due to cancelled or revised transport services, some of which happens at the last minute. For users who must be accompanied, it is financially unviable for them to use taxis, as the taxis have to wait and return. Further, it is impractical for them to use public transport. By way of example, for users who need to be accompanied in a taxi, the staff can do only one run and the taxi must wait and return, which can cost up to £22 per day. If that taxi is not shared with another user, the cost of taxis alone can be £180 a week, when the travel allowance is £77 a week. Thus, users often have to eat into their £34-a-week allowance for personal care. To make matters worse, professional carers often have to accompany service users in the taxi to ensure their safety and well-being. That means that staff are being taken away from their duties and leaving gaps in other areas of care. I have spoken directly with parents — constituents — who are affected. I know that other Members in the Chamber have done so, as has the Minister. Their accounts are heartbreaking. Families report the significant stress and anxiety resulting from the cancellations of the bus service, both for their children and themselves. I have been told of adults with special educational needs — sons, daughters, siblings — who have been left waiting in distress, becoming increasingly anxious and frustrated. Short notice can result in huge meltdowns. Remember: they are grown men and women, many of whom retain their physicality. It is difficult for parents to watch such emotional distress when they feel so powerless to help. Members will appreciate that, for those users, routine is everything. Change and disruption are difficult. Users become agitated, upset, stressed and irritable, yet it is not much better when they are afforded notice. If they know that the bus is not coming on Monday morning, they do not sleep, because their routine has been disrupted. We heard from parents whose children are in residential care, and they told us that their children will call them in the middle of the night or early in the morning because they are riddled with anxiety caused by the change and the loss. They know they cannot get to the centre and will be stuck in the house. Indeed, one user has begun to self-harm as a consequence.
Conversely, parents report that their children settle when the bus comes, which is a testament to Edgcumbe’s success and its significance to the users. Further, it must be borne in mind that considerable numbers of the parents are ageing or elderly. They are often smaller than their adult children and physically incapable of withstanding meltdowns and dealing with the outworkings of the emotional fallout and distress. They are vulnerable, and many have health conditions of their own and already perpetually live in fear about what will happen to their child when they are no longer able or no longer here to take care of them or stand up for them. The same applies to the siblings who have taken on the caring responsibilities. Further to a meeting between the Belfast Trust and parents and guardians, the trust advised that the cause of the failures lies in a shortage of drivers. The trust said that it had engaged in repeated recruitment exercises that have failed due to pay disparity. Bus drivers are paid a lower hourly rate than drivers in other sectors and Departments. Thus, naturally, recruitment and retention are becoming increasingly difficult. To outline the extent of the problem, at the initial meeting in October, we were advised that the trust lost nearly double the number of drivers in 2025 than in the previous year and that, despite rolling recruitment, applicants are down by almost two thirds on the year before, which has compounded the difficulty. It is deeply concerning that an essential service for vulnerable adults and their families has been allowed to deteriorate to that point because of an unresolved staffing issue. At the meeting, to its credit, the trust was rightly honest about the situation it faces and the steps that it is taking to alleviate the matter. The trust is in discussions about training and employment schemes, but, ultimately, it requires drivers to accept a lower wage than they could earn elsewhere. Understandably, in the current economic climate, that is a difficult ask and a tough choice.
I will.
I am grateful to the Member for making that point. He is absolutely right, and I hope that the Minister of Health will address that issue. The trust outlined the difficulties with the contracted prices for agency workers and, notably and interestingly, mentioned the need for trusts to have zero-hours contracts because many of the drivers are also employed elsewhere. Losing those contracts would have a further hugely detrimental effect on those services. To bring additional buses on board, the trust even tendered for private coach firms, but no company submitted a bid. The trust is frustrated that every avenue it has explored has failed to provide a remedy. In accordance with the rules for Adjournment debates, I intend to focus my remarks on the impact in my constituency of East Belfast. However, it should be noted that it is not merely an issue in the Belfast Trust; it is reflected across the piece, but we are advised that the Belfast Trust is the most affected. Astonishingly, I am led to believe that there are no fundamental conversations between the trusts, no learning taken from one another and no discussions about best practice or solutions, which is why I sought to involve the Minister. I considered it imperative that he was informed of the overall problem, the siloed nature of the responses to a regional issue and, most important, that he heard directly for himself the human impact on users and their loved ones. I express my thanks to the Minister for his recent visit to Edgcumbe Day Centre at my request, alongside Andy Allen MLA and our local MP, Gavin Robinson. During the visit, the Minister heard at first hand from families, particularly Clare and Jacqueline, who spoke movingly and powerfully on behalf of the families about the realities of life for parents and carers and the toll taken by the ongoing uncertainty. The Minister will also remember William, who uses a specialised wheelchair and depends entirely on suitable transport arrangements.
I thank the Minister for taking the time to listen. His presence and engagement were appreciated, but, as he will understand and, I hope, agree, families need more than empathy; they need action and resolution. We are all aware of the significant financial pressures that the Minister faces. Nevertheless, I considered it only fair and right to make him aware of what is going on and to ask him to look into it, given the urgency of the problem in East Belfast and the wider Belfast area. However, its Province-wide impact may offer an opportunity for a regional solution, which might be cost-effective and more easily negotiated. Edgcumbe needs at least five buses or, ideally, six. On a good day, it has three. Inevitably, some attendees are always left behind. We need clarity on what specific steps are being taken to address the pay disparities that undermine recruitment and retention; we need assurance that there is a contingency plan so that no service user is left stranded; we need a timeline for when families can expect reliability to be restored; and we need recognition that the matter is not peripheral or administrative but goes to the heart of how we treat adults with profound additional needs and support those who care for them. The families are not asking for luxury; they are asking for a bus to arrive when it is supposed to, for their sons and daughters to be treated with dignity and for the small measure of respite that allows them to continue caring at home. I appreciate the pressures on the health service and know that the challenges of workforce shortages are real, but it must be recognised that, for families such as those connected to Edgcumbe, the breakdown of something as fundamental as transport has a devastating ripple effect. It impacts on mental health, emotional and physical well-being, employment, family stability and, ultimately, trust in the system. I seek the Minister's urgent intervention to stabilise transport provision and prevent the current situation from reoccurring. The families have waited too long: some have waited for at least seven years, as the Minister knows. The attendees rely on that transport. It is their gateway to opportunities to learn, socialise, have some independence and receive therapy — in other words, to lead a fulfilled life. The service users and their families deserve answers. They deserve action, reassurance, peace of mind and, ultimately, the service that they were promised.
1,971 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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