Debate contribution: Excess Deaths Linked to Long Emergency Department Waits
Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on .
- MLA
- Mr Mike Nesbitt
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 20 April 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Question for Urgent Oral Answer
- Heading
- Excess Deaths Linked to Long Emergency Department Waits
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5493682
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I agree with the Member, and I have made the point several times in the Chamber. It is about flow through the hospitals. On many occasions, the focus of the media and the House has been on the front door, including delays in ambulance handovers and delays in getting patients, about whom there had been a decision to admit in the emergency department, into a bed in an acute hospital.
However, the problem is at the back door. It is about — the Member has used my phrase — community capacity. What are we doing about it? We are looking at a long-term solution, because you cannot flick a switch and fix it. The Member is well aware that the first thing that we need to do is get to a point where we can introduce the real living wage — something that I wanted to do last September. I stand ready to do that and to backdate it to 1 April. However, to do it, I need a budget, and, as yet, the Executive have not yet come to an agreement on a Budget for this year nor, indeed, on the much preferred multi-year Budget.
196 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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