DUP’s Sammy Wilson challenges Health Minister Robin Swann over budget

The DUP was responding to Mr Swann’s warning that attempts to rebuild the health service in the Province were being sabotaged by the absence of a budget.

East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson pointed out that Mr Swann’s Department of Health consumes 50 per cent of current public spending in Northern Ireland.

Rejecting the idea that the DUP veto over a new Executive was to blame for problems plaguing the local NHS, Mr Wilson said: “In England, 44 per cent of the budget goes to Health and the Minister there has, only in the last week, said that his own budget should not be increased any further because it is unfair to expect other services to carry the burden of inefficiencies in the health service.

“The question for Robin Swann is ‘what has he done to make the money his department receives more effective?’ What new reforms has he introduced? What pressure has he put on GPs to return to a full service? What plan has he put in place to deal with the waiting lists? How has he tried to reduce costs in his Department? What tough rationalisation decisions has he made?”

The DUP MP added: “We cannot continue to plunder other department’s budgets to finance an unreformed health service. Some of the problems we face today were a result of the deliberate decisions made by the current Health Minister to stop screening for certain diseases, to close whole sections of the health service, which we warned would have longer term consequences and then to be too scared or unimaginative to demand services to return to normal as the Covid threat reduced.”

The DUP has come under sustained criticism over its refusal to help set up a new Executive until the Northern Ireland Protocol is radically changed.

The Health Minister said earlier on Tuesday that it was “hard to imagine a worse possible time to deprive our health service of budgetary certainty” in a written statement to MLAs providing an update on reform of services.

A planned multi-year budget which would have prioritised spending in health has not been progressed due to the collapse of the powersharing institutions at Stormont.

In his statement, Mr Swann updated the Assembly on a number of initiatives, including his decision to commission a design plan mapping out the future shape of hospital services.

He also briefed MLAs on the review of general surgery and initiatives to improve stroke care and rebuild orthopaedic surgery provision.

But Mr Swann warned that “much more needs to be done to fix our health service”.

He said: “The serious problems we are facing have built up over many years and have been significantly exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“In my considered view, it is hard to imagine a worse possible time to deprive our health service of budgetary certainty across the short, medium and long term.

“This situation threatens to seriously delay, if not thwart, the progress we need to make.

“It is difficult to envisage what it would be like to run a household budget without any certainty on income levels. Everyday decisions on expenditure would be shrouded in doubt, concern and insecurity.

“Consider then that we are condemning a £7 billion-a-year health and social care system to similar circumstances.”

He said: “Not long ago, patients and staff in Northern Ireland had the promise of a multi-year budget, with the potential for longer-term planning and sustained investment.

“As things stand at present, we have no budget at all.

“Prolonging this state of affairs would be tantamount to sabotaging the rebuilding of our health service.

“Currently, every decision I make on approving additional expenditure is being taken at risk.”

Mr Swann said pressures would become more significant as the financial year progressed.

He added: “I continue to be lobbied by members to further increase funding across a wide range of vitally important health and social care services.

“My inability to meet these demands is not due to any unwillingness on my behalf.”