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 5493727
Read the official Assembly record
Text
When I invited Professor Rafael Bengoa to come back in 2024 and reboot his report, 'Systems, Not Structures: Changing Health and Social Care', he gave me a valuable piece of advice. He said, "Be really tight on what you want to achieve, and articulate it clearly so that people understand, but be very loose about how you achieve it, because you are not a nurse, domiciliary care worker, GP, surgeon, clinician or hospital administrator. Go and ask the people who understand how the system works how we make it better". That is what I did with the Big Conversation: we had four workshops that led to the winter plan for the winter just past. If the Member wants to say that those experts do not know what they are talking about, she can fill her boots.
I am not aware of the circumstances of the particular case. I very much regret that that happened to the individual and her family. Unfortunately, the case is probably not an outlier. I am sure that many if not all Members have similar stories of constituents who do not get the service that we would want them to get. I am frequently contacted by people who make the point that Mrs Dillon made, which is that they are taxpayers and pay their National Insurance and that they have done so not just for years but for decades. They therefore believe that they are entitled to a better service, and I do not disagree with them. I do not know the specifics of the challenges that the South West Acute Hospital faced that meant that it was over capacity on that occasion. We have a growing population and an ageing population, however, and, if anybody can crack how to better deliver care for the elderly, they will crack most of the problems in the health and social care system.
314 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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