Debate contribution: South West Acute Hospital, Enniskillen

Debate contribution by Mr Tom Buchanan on 24 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Tom Buchanan

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

24 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

South West Acute Hospital, Enniskillen

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5404879

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Minister for being here. We have heard much about the development of cross-border services, and there is no doubt that the South West Acute Hospital, given where it is situated, lends itself to such services. However, there are a few fundamentals that we must consider prior to moving to any development of cross-border services. First, there must be protection for local capacity. The South West Acute Hospital, which is a state-of-the-art hospital, as has been mentioned, was built to serve the people of the rural south-west quarter of Northern Ireland. We must not do anything to undermine or hinder its development for service delivery to those people. We saw a protest at Stormont yesterday because of the removal of emergency general surgery. The people who were here were from the rural hinterland of County Fermanagh, and they came to lobby for the restoration of that service and others. They want to see the hospital utilised to its full service delivery potential for people from the area and from the whole south-west quarter of Northern Ireland. First priority must therefore be given to protecting local capacity. Waiting lists in Northern Ireland are among the worst in the UK, and I thank the Minister for the work that he has done in recent times to reduce those waiting lists. Therefore, local people must be given priority.

I am sure that, like me, Members around the Chamber deal weekly in their constituency office with constituents' health issues, including lengthy waiting times. Frankly, until that issue is resolved, we do not need to put further pressure on the South West Acute Hospital, which would add to the problem. Let us look at the funding issue. The South West Acute Hospital is funded through the Northern Ireland Health budget, so Northern Ireland taxpayers should not be subject to reduced access as a result of capacity being allocated elsewhere. That would not happen in any other jurisdiction. If cross-border usage were to be expanded to the South West Acute Hospital, full and consistent funding would need to follow the patient, or would the Health Minister be expected to find that funding from an already stretched Health budget? What about staffing? We all know that we face severe staffing issues across our health and social care system. If the South West Acute Hospital were to become a cross-border hospital, would that result in staff being shared across the border? From conversations that some of my colleagues have had, I know that there would be a logistical and HR problem in developing and delivering this. What about the extra demand? Our doctors and nurses are already overstretched. Adding demand risks burnout and retention issues. In rural trusts such as the Western Health and Social Care Trust, staff recruitment is difficult at the best of times, so extra demand in the absence of extra staff would render it unsustainable. We are all too well aware of the downgrading of services at the South West Acute Hospital in recent times, such as the changes to emergency general surgery. We are all passionate about that and want to see it restored. Before any consideration is given to exploring cross-border access, we must focus our energy on stabilising and restoring full services in the South West Acute Hospital and across the Western Health and Social Care Trust area for the local population. Take the Hospital at Home concept: the Western Health and Social Care Trust has made provision for that service at Altnagelvin and in Enniskillen, but there is no provision whatsoever for it in Omagh. That points to a real disparity in service delivery, with services not being delivered evenly and equally across the trust area. Until all those issues are resolved, I see no merit in adding a greater burden to a system that is already under pressure. Any decisions must be taken incrementally with full Assembly scrutiny and transparency.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:03 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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