I want to discuss my concern about the removal of the unit for the cleansing of endoscopy equipment at the Downe Hospital. I will go right from the start, because some critics will jump in to say that we are against transformation or we will potentially be accused of engaging in parish pump politics, and I have a letter here from the chief executive that states that the unit is being removed because of efficiencies and not because of any wider transformation programme. I do not think that it could be stated that a single change to an isolated service in order to improve efficiency is being done for the purpose of transformation. I just wanted to put that out there at the beginning.

Staff at that location in the Downe are absolutely hurt. They are hurt because they deliver the service in such a top-class way that they have an accreditation for it that staff at the Ulster Hospital — the service is being moved there — do not have. It is a bit difficult to understand why you would take a really good service that is working well and move it to somewhere else where the standard is at a different level.

Previously, the MO of the trust — I am clear that this does not refer to the current chief executive — was so transparent that it was embarrassing. The trust took the decision to completely run down a service and then, after a year or two, to review the service provision and close down the service that had been run down, saying, "It's because it is run down". I worry that the trust is removing the ability to clean the materials and the utensils, taking that service away, and, in a few years' time, if it reviews the service provision, it will say that, because that service is not there, it has to close it down. I want it recorded in Hansard, so that we can see that and that I stated that. If that is a consideration in the future, we will have this statement to refer to.

The staff at the Downe, the members of the Downe community health committee, which met about this last night, and all the elected representatives in the area sing from the same hymn sheet. We all shout the same thing, which is that the Downe Hospital can do so much more. It wants to contribute to addressing the waiting lists and to help. It wants to contribute to service delivery. It wants to play its part. The staff want to do that, and all the elected representatives in the area want to support that.

I wanted to make that statement, and I hope that, in the future, we see additional services at the Downe.