Health minister hails ‘remarkable success’ of drive to tackle waiting lists

The number of people waiting more than four years for an outpatient appointment in Northern Ireland has fallen by almost a quarter.

Health Minister Mike Nesbitt hailed the drop recorded between April and September, which is equivalent to 24,811 fewer patients.

Over the same period, the number of people waiting more than four years for treatment reduced by 33%, a fall of 6,683 patients.

Meanwhile since April, more than 100,000 red flag or time-critical patients have been seen, diagnosed or treated across Health and Social Care Trusts (HSC) and through partnerships with the independent sector.

And based on current plans, this figure is expected to rise to around 226,000 patients.

It comes amid a Reset Plan which is hoped to see further progress.

Attending the Nicon 2025 conference in Belfast on Wednesday morning, Mr Nesbitt hailed “quite remarkable success”, and paid tribute to Professor Mark Taylor who is leading on the effort as Clinical Director for Elective Care.

Ahead of the publication of a winter preparedness plan on Thursday, Mr Nesbitt said it “won’t solve everything for this winter”, but “it will hopefully help”.

“It’ll also set a direction of travel for future winters,” he said, describing a plan which started from a blank sheet with input from a range of professional bodies.

However he warned that if nurses go on strike this winter the effects could be much harder on the health service than during previous action.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has warned of the potential for strike because pay parity for nurses with the rest of the UK has not been delivered.

Mr Nesbitt previously said he had signed off on a pay award in line with the Pay Review Body (PRB) recommendation of a 3.6% pay rise for health workers in Northern Ireland but that the money would have to be found by the Executive because he is facing a funding shortfall in his department.

On Thursday, Mr Nesbitt said his funding gap is around £600 million, which he said is “unprecedented and unmanageable”, and confirmed he has asked the Executive for help with the £200 million to deliver the nurses’ pay parity.

“I’m still liaising with the unions and the professional bodies, we met as recently as yesterday, so we’re not over the line, but I think we have made significant progress,” he said.

“I’m relatively optimistic that we’re going to get there, but the challenge is to get there quickly, because the RCN are using their right to ballot members, Unison have also decided to exercise their right to ballot members.

“It could develop a momentum to industrial/strike action, and it becomes very difficult to handle, so I think it is now a matter of utter urgency that we get this resolved.”

Mr Nesbitt described a potentially “scary” situation if nurses go on strike this winter, with fewer derogations expected this time, compared to a previous nurses strike in 2024.

“Last time they went on strike, they put in so many derogations that it was quite a soft strike in their assessment, and therefore the message didn’t land hard enough, so this time they say if they go out on strike there will be no derogations, and no mitigations, so they’ll not be walking back into an emergency department, and they’ll not be helping trying to make good the shortfall that there will be in terms of nursing staff.”