Agenda item

The Committee was reminded that the Council, at its meeting on 1st February, had passed the following motion, which had been proposed by Councillor Ferguson and seconded by Councillor Matt Collins:

“This Council calls on the Stormont Executive to continue to work with all available health care resources, including all publicly funded health professionals and the private health sector, to ease the burden on our overwhelmed health service and health workers; to ensure the health service has the available beds, capacity and staff to care for all those sick with Covid; and in order to carry out all Red Flag cancer surgeries, and all other vital operations and life-saving procedures.”?

            The City Solicitor submitted for the Committee’s consideration a response which had been received from the Minister of Health.

            The Minister had begun by stating that it was unacceptable that any patient had had to wait longer than was clinically appropriate for surgery or treatment and had stressed that waiting times for elective surgery remained one of his key priorities.

            Since the number of patients requiring admission and treatment for Covid-19 related illness began to rise in October, it had become increasingly difficult to maintain planned services. Staff across the system had had to be redeployed to help manage the higher number of patients being admitted to hospitals on an emergency basis and also to allow the system to increase critical care capacity.

            He had explained that all Trusts maintained urgent bookable theatre lists for emergency surgery and utilised capacity within those lists for cancer surgery. This was kept under daily review.

            In addition, his Department had established a Regional Prioritisation Oversight Group to ensure that clinical prioritisation of time critical and urgent cases across surgical specialities and Trust boundaries was consistent and transparent. The Group ensured also that the utilisation of all available capacity was fully maximised.

            Whilst this may mean that patients were required to travel further for their surgery, the Minister would rather see the highest priority treatments delivered elsewhere in Northern Ireland, than not at all.

            He had gone on to point out that, given the impact of Covid-19 on health service operating capacity, he had made it clear that all possible sources of additional capacity should be utilised. That had included securing theatre capacity from local independent sector health providers. From 1st April, 2020 to 7th February, 2021, approximately 4,300 patients had been treated by local HSC consultants in the three local independent sector providers. Provision for continued access to the three independent hospitals had been made until 31st March 2021 and would continue for the foreseeable future.

            In addition to that, some capacity had been secured from private clinics in the Republic of Ireland and discussions were ongoing with NHS England for in-house and independent sector capacity for Northern Ireland patients.

            The Minister had assured the Council that Trusts were working hard to maintain cancer care, in so far as that was possible during the current surge. That would include seeking to continue to maximise fully all available in-house HSC and independent sector capacity, both within and outside Northern Ireland.

            He had added that it must also be recognised that cancer services had been in a challenging position before the pandemic. The pandemic had exacerbated the challenges but it had not created them. There was no doubt that some services would benefit from reform, but above all, there needed to be a commitment to significant and sustained investment.

            The Minister had concluded by stating that he deeply regretted that anyone had had their surgery postponed or delayed.

            The Committee noted the response.