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 5493688
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I accept that it is about the flow, as I said to Mr Donnelly. I cannot give you a timeline for the fix, because it will require investment. The more investment that is put into it, the quicker the fix will be realised. You said that there were 1,032 excess deaths last year. The year before, the number was 1,122. The year before that, it was over 1,000 again, at 1,063. That was in 2023. So there is a trend there, although we have not introduced a trend of reducing that number. I looked at the last report that I am aware of from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine on the NHS in England. In 2023, 1·5 million-plus people waited for over 12 hours in emergency departments in England. That led to nearly 300 excess deaths per week. The situation is not right in England, it is not right here, and we are struggling to find the fix.
159 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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