Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Health – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 3:00 pm on 15 April 2024.
Robin Swann
UUP
3:00,
15 April 2024
The Member makes a valid point that has been reiterated across the House many times, not just by me but by Executive colleagues. When we talk about waiting lists, the challenge is having a non-recurrent Budget that does not allow us to make the strategic changes that we want to make across health, which needs that long-term, recurrent investment. Look at the waiting list initiatives: the funding that my Department has been given over the past number of years from a single-year Budget makes those larger pieces of transformation that we want to do all the more challenging, but we still push on in looking at how we can develop overnight care, day case procedure units and rapid diagnostic centres while we can do that within the remit of the budget and workforce that I have available.