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I will be brief. The Minister said that he wants to give workers a pay rise but that that cannot happen in the absence of an Executive Budget. Will he agree that, if we all get a pay rise but the many tens of thousands of healthcare workers who deserve a pay rise do not, it will bring this place into utter disrepute?
I thank the Member. He has been here only a short time, but he has managed to weave an incredible supplementary question into this topic. I am very alive to the issue. It is something that I have been contacted about not just because I am the Health Minister but because people understand my acute interest in the space…
Minister, with your answers focusing on the value of staff in our health and social care system, you will also be aware of our voluntary sector and its equal value in complementing your Department in a considerable way. To that end, you will be aware of the work of incredABLE in my constituency and its important adult…
I thank the Member for her question. Whilst everybody in the health service regardless of their clinical practice, whether they are a band 5, a band 6, a band 7, a band 8, a consultant, a doctor or a dentist, deserves to be fairly remunerated, for me, one of the most important issues to address is the real living wage…
Minister, I understand that you cannot give the pay increase until the ministerial direction has been approved. I fully understand your position on that. However, may I get some clarity on the real living wage? I believe that you are in a position to move forward with that if you are able to find money within your…
It would be helpful if your party leader and colleague would clarify whom he thinks is going to pull down the institutions, because that is calling it out for what it is. It certainly is not those on these Benches.
That is without doubt. I sat with colleagues last week in my fourth Executive meeting, and I will be fair to my Executive colleagues: it was the number-one item on the table. Whilst I agree — we all agree — that it is the first priority, addressing it comes with complexity, and bringing down the Assembly would mean…
I thank the Minister for that comprehensive answer. Does he agree that there are those in this place who, by their selfish actions, seem to want to collapse the institutions and that the first casualty of that collapse would be public-sector pay?
I thank the Member for his question. Regrettably, Executive approval has not yet been secured. Approval should, of course, be accompanied by sufficient recurrent funding to assure affordability in this year and future years. I emphasise to Executive and Assembly colleagues as well as the UK Government the increasing…
I thank the Member for his question. I will respond in two parts, if he does not mind. The temporary suspension of emergency general surgery at the South West Acute Hospital remains in place. It is important that people know that the suspension is temporary. The Western Health and Social Care Trust is developing a…
Minister, following the unplanned collapse of emergency services at the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) in Enniskillen, there were several inadequate — indeed, shambolic — consultations. So inadequate were they that your predecessor had to pause the move, and finally it was withdrawn. What steps will you take to…
I really do thank the Member for her question, because it gives me the chance to address something that was maybe misconstrued. There has been no pause on any network reconfiguration. What has been paused is how we name services and what we call them. It is literally a pressure that I identified when I talked to…
Minister, you spoke a few weeks ago about pausing not the overall reconfiguration but the hospital network system. You just mentioned the committees in common across all the trusts, but our waiting lists will not get better in the long term if we do not change and deliver healthcare in a more sustainable way. Given…
I thank the Member for his question, and his passion for his local area and its hospital. I am not going to say yes or no to his question, even though it is a fair question. I have been Health Minister for just over six weeks, and I have had the pleasure of meeting each of the health trust leads and their senior…
I thank the Minister for his detailed answer. Does he agree that, along with any reconfiguration, there needs to be reform of the five health trusts and a delve down into whether they reflect the wider system pressures and whether their use of funding, strategies and staffing have created the problems that we are now…
I thank the Member for his question. I understand the ongoing concern in relation to the provision of emergency general surgery at the Causeway Hospital and the potential impact on other acute services as a result of any change. However, let me be abundantly clear; any decision on a permanent change to a Health and…
I thank the Member for her question and the way in which she put it. There are multiple crises across the health and social care system. The review will give us a platform to engage proactively with all stakeholders. As I have said many times, the stakeholders — in this case, our dentists and the BDA — are central to…
The reform that you have outlined does not give me a great deal of reassurance. The situation is urgent, and we need urgent steps to be taken in order to stop dentists leaving the health service. What urgent steps can you take to stop that immediately? There are dental deserts across all of our communities in Northern…
I thank the Member for his supplementary question. There are workforce pressures throughout the health and social care system, and dentistry suffers from that same pressure. Opening up places requires resource, but we have no shortage of people who are willing to take up those posts. Extra funding was allocated in…
Minister, I certainly welcome the ongoing action that you have taken to improve access. What new action is your Department taking to recruit, train and retain dentists in order to improve access to health service dentistry across Northern Ireland?
I thank the Member for her question. I can comfortably say that that formed the biggest part of my conversation with departmental officials and my analysis of the risks that we still face. I see access to NHS dentistry as a goal that we should all try to attain. As the Member rightly pointed out, across the health…
Minister, the 'State of Child Health' report that was published a couple of weeks ago identified that, in child dental extraction rates, inequality between the least-deprived and most-deprived areas has increased significantly. The gap, which was 1% in 2020, had risen to 11% by 2024. Is the Department doing any…
I thank the Member for his question. As with every challenge that I face in Health, it is really important that we establish the voice of the service user and of the clinicians who provide the service — in this case, our dentists. Therefore, engagement will be absolutely key. There will be early engagement with the…
Minister, you mentioned the general dental services cost-of-service review that your Department published last month. You have accepted that there is a significant gap between the hourly rate paid to dentists and the cost of providing dental services. What actions are you taking to ensure that the gap can be closed,…