Robin Swann
North Antrim · Ulster Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“I thank the Minister for his detailed statement. I know how passionate he is about the subject and how many times he has brought it to the Executive.”
“It has been reported that today will potentially be the warmest day of the year. As we move into the summer and our summer holidays, I want to raise public awareness of wildfires across Northern Ireland, which have been detrimental to farmland and our environment over the past number of years.”
“Wildfires are still having a detrimental impact on our environment and, occasionally, on livestock, but that reduction shows the impact of the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service's proactive approach to educating the general public and engaging with rural communities and schools on its fire safety message, which is to stay alert, not…”
“There has been a lot of talk of sport in this place over the past few days, with everybody concentrating on UEFA. One sport that is going on across Northern Ireland at the minute is cross-community and goes across all age groups without fear, favour or distinction: pigeon racing.”
“I want to put on record that, since this place passed the amendment that recognised pigeon racing as a sport under the 2016 Act, over the past five years, pigeon racing clubs across Northern Ireland have been able to obtain £113,000 of rates rebates through the sports and recreation rate relief, allowing many of those clubs to continue ra…”
“There was much coverage on social media over the weekend of an incident in Staines in England, in which a police car rammed a young calf to bring it under control. It has restarted the conversation about animal cruelty. <BR /> <BR />I am dealing with a specific case in my constituency.”
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“I spoke yesterday to physiotherapists, speech and language therapists and dieticians, all of whom had come forward to be part of the vaccine programme because they see it as such a positive thing that our health service is doing. It is such an emotive one as well. Talking to the centre manager, I learned that one of the things that they did not prepare for when they established the centre was putting boxes of hankies in each vaccination booth. The manager said that the number of people who burst out in tears because of the relief of getting the vaccine was immeasurable. I have used this story in the House before as well: I think it was in the South Eastern Trust that a lady receiving her first vaccine thanked the vaccinator for holding her hand, because that was the first human touch that she had felt in nearly a year.”
“I thank the Member for his acknowledgement of the vaccine service. I have visited a number of sites. I got my vaccine through community pharmacy and our GPs, who are delivering it as well. One of the most emotive visits is to visit one of those vaccine centres. I was in the Ballymena centre in the Seven Towers Leisure Centre yesterday. The majority of the staff on duty were volunteering and working on their days off to deliver vaccines, because they see it as such a psychological lift for them and for the people of Northern Ireland. They are providing part of the relief and part of the way out of what has been a terrible 14 months. Those staff — some of whom have come back from retirement, and some of whom are trainees — have energy, commitment and drive.”
“It is challenging work. It is a massive workforce to cover with a number of financial commitments, but that acknowledgement payment is one of the pieces of work for which I have had full support from my Executive colleagues. It is more complicated than it sounded initially, but I want to make sure that people get as much of that money in their pockets as possible by working with my Executive colleagues.”
“We are now working to ensure that, if that £500 is paid over a staggered period to individuals who are also on income support payments, it will not adversely affect any other benefits that they are gaining. <BR /> <BR />It is complex work that covers many thousands of staff not only within but outside the health service. It has taken more time than I would have liked, but I want to make sure that we get as much of that money as possible into the pockets of the people who have worked for it and deserve it. We are working with our trade union side to make sure that it is on board. One of the asks that it made of us was to try to make the payment to as many people at the same time as possible, rather than paying it piecemeal and causing anxiety to people who may think that they are not getting it or are not entitled to it.”
“I thank the Member. I will tell him that no staff have received that payment so far. One of the two asks that I was given was to make sure that the payment was tax-free and did not affect benefits, especially for lower-paid staff in our healthcare sector workforce. Since we made the initial announcement, additional work has had to be done, and that continues. Thanks to the Member's colleague in Finance, we were able to increase the package so that that £500 should not incur the majority of its tax implication. We have also been working with the Member's colleague in Communities, who has engaged with her colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to see how we can make the payment so that it will not have an effect on any supplementary benefit payments either. That has been a bigger challenge.”
“<BR /> <BR />The Member knows well that, if we can engage with people who are starting to struggle with mental health issues, that can prevent the problem becoming a more serious long-term issue. It can prevent the challenge coming onto their friends and family. It is about making sure that we invest in community organisations and the voluntary and community sector and support them in what we will need them to do over the next number of years as we combat the challenge of the mental health stresses coming out of COVID.”
“<BR /> <BR />With regard to post-pandemic mental health support, we have seen work being undertaken in primary care through our multidisciplinary teams. It is about how we strengthen those so that, in mental health, we see people closer to home. That is one area in which that can be done and you do not need to go into a theatre or a diagnostic room. I will make announcements on funding for talking therapies and to support the voluntary and community sector. Volunteers have carried such a heavy load over the past 12 months, and we must make sure that there is funding for them. Again, all that I have in my purse is short-term funding. Short-term non-recurrent funding is all that I can give. However, it is about making investment in those people so that they can pay back into communities.”
“I thank the Member. The challenges in neurology are well documented. It goes back to long-term investment in specialists, especially in critical procedures and critical areas, which we have not seen for years. In an awful lot of specialities, there was no succession planning. We need to see that now and make more investment. However, in a number of those specialities, it takes years to train consultants and to bring them on board. Attracting consultants from abroad requires an attractive package. There needs to be long-term sustainability. Those consultants need to know that their post will be there and that their staff will be there to support them. That is one of the challenges that we have seen in neurology and in a lot of other specialities in Northern Ireland.”
“It is about investment for the future. <BR /> <BR />There used to be a great phrase in politics in Northern Ireland: "Invest to save". Nowhere is that key principle of invest to save more important than in our National Health Service. Invest now. Invest now in the health of our young people. Invest in diagnostic tests so that we do not get to the pressures that come in future years but can intervene before we get into a worse scenario with increased waiting lists and more serious conditions to deal with and support.”
“If they know that we are able to give them £35 million this year, they can spend it, but they are then under the same staffing pressures as we are: how do they staff up, knowing that, in 12 months' time, the Department of Health may not have the money to keep the services and staff that they have invested in? It is about how we get over that hurdle of the recurrent budget. <BR /> <BR />That is not a criticism of my Executive colleagues. Every one of my ministerial colleagues is under the same pressure. However, the system that we now have pushes additional challenges on to, in particular, the Departments who spend the majority of our funding on our staff, such as my Department and the Department of Education. That ongoing need is always there and always will be there until we can get over that hurdle.”
“It does not allow us to face the long-term challenge and make the long-term change that we need to see in the health service across the entirety of our system. <BR /> <BR />On the utilisation of the independent sector, we have engaged with it extensively over a number of months, even from the first wave of the pandemic. The biggest challenge that we have in working in partnership with our independent sector is the inability to give it a long-term funding commitment. When we buy services from the independent sector, it is for a 12-month period. We cannot buy a number of thousands of operations or diagnostic tests on the basis of a long-term commitment, so the independent sector faces the same challenges as we do as a health service.”
“I thank the Member for his comments. Again, he highlights the challenges. <BR /> <BR />The National Health Service is precious to me. It is precious to me not just as Health Minister but because of the support that my family has received from it, like many families in the House and across Northern Ireland. The core strength of our National Health Service is that it is free at the point of need, free at the point of care and free at the point of delivery, no matter the ailment or stress. <BR /> <BR />It is a question of how we build capacity not just in staffing but in our recurrent footprint. The Member highlights — I thank him for his support — the challenges that not having a recurrent budget in health presents.”
“It is about rebuilding our health service so that people can be seen as quickly, efficiently and safely as possible and get the service, the diagnosis and the diagnostic tests that they need so that they can, if necessary, get on to a treatment path as quickly as possible, not as close as possible.”
“<BR /> <BR />The Member will be aware, as the chair of the all-party group on cancer, of the co-production and co-design of our cancer strategy over many years. That was paused this time last year because of the pandemic. That ingrained work, through co-production and co-chairing with service users, was, I think, crucial in getting us to where we are at this stage. We can take the opportunity and investment to try to redress some of the inequalities, especially in cancer diagnostics and cancer services, that we have seen on a postcode basis across Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />We need to be honest with the people of Northern Ireland: this will not be about having everything on your doorstep. That is the easy cry; it is the easy political campaign.”
“I thank the Member for her statement about how we tackle this and for her support through the work that she does as chair of the all-party group on cancer. Cancer is one of those diseases that has touched every family across Northern Ireland and those in the House. As I said, we will make further announcements about additional funding that will be supplied for the three-year cancer recovery fund. That is being produced and worked on with a number of community and voluntary sector organisations that specialise in that area. We want to make sure that that funding is utilised in the available time commitment and that it supports everyone across the voluntary and community sector and the health service. It is not simply there to plug a gap; it is there to do additional work over that three-year period.”
“New Decade, New Approach, in its commitments to reducing our waiting lists, set the tone for that. Now, we as a House and as a society need to follow through on that commitment: health needs to be a priority for all, irrespective of faith, favour or party political alignment.”
“Our independent sector and healthcare providers have, during 2021-22, completed more than 7,000 procedures, and endoscopic diagnostic tests have been carried out by them, all paid for by the health and social care system. In addition, as a result of Health and Social Care having access to theatre capacity in the three local independent sector hospitals, approximately 4,750 cancer or time-critical patients were treated by HSC consultants, again, paid for by the health and social care system. <BR /> <BR />It is about utilising, as I said, every square foot of our health service and the independent sector across Northern Ireland as we tackle what will be a long-term commitment, which, as the Member indicated, has to be party-political-free. Bengoa set the tone for that.”
“I thank the Member for his question. I think that all in the House have, at some time, spoken about the need for long-term financing for Health and Social Care and the need for a Budget that is not simply year-on-year. No matter which Minister or Department has been to the House, they have indicated the challenges that not having that brings, no more so than in Health, because it does not allow us to give that firm, long-term commitment that we need to invest in not only our staff but our facilities. <BR /> <BR />On the utilisation of the independent sector, we have engaged with it, and that is a necessary part of our recovery plan to try to drive down some of the waiting lists that we have.”
“I thank the Member, and I think that the Member is fully aware of my commitment to improving our mental health services across the entirety of Northern Ireland. That is why, even during the height of the first wave of the pandemic, I went ahead and published the mental health strategy and the consultation plan in relation to that. In the coming days, I hope to make further announcements about additional moneys that will be allocated to mental health support for people who need it across our society, especially as we come out of the pandemic. It will be accessible to a number of organisations and individuals that it had not been previously available to. The detail of that is being worked through, and I look forward to publishing that and giving the Member and the Committee a fuller briefing later this month.”
“<BR /> <BR />This is not about redesigning or closing hospitals or paying staff off. This is about actually indicating that we need every spare square foot of capacity that we have; we need more, and we need more staff to actually do that. As the Chair well knows, I regularly meet our trade union side and the chairs of all my arm's-length bodies to make sure that they are fully embedded in and have sight of everything that we are doing as well, and also to provide the accountability that the Committee requires in our producing these plans and programmes and in coming forward with them for scrutiny and assessment.”
“I thank the Chair for his statement. As he is aware, many of the plans announced today have been a long time in the cooking and development from the Bengoa report, 'Transforming Your Care' and 'Power to People'. They have all been done with that co-production and co-development phase throughout their entirety, especially with regard to our long-term cancer strategy, which has been co-produced and co-chaired and will keep those people who need these services most right at the heart of what we do. That co-production has also been done in the review of our elective care model, which has been a long time in the development. It is about keeping patients at the centre of what we do, but it is also about making sure that we get the ultimate utilisation of our footprint and our staff across the entirety of our service.”
“It is about building on that for the future so that the people who need to be seen can be seen as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
“Treating patients closer to their homes would be the ideal position, but, due to the size of Northern Ireland, the footprint of our health service and our staffing specialities and pressures, the regional approach, which we are seeing in Lagan Valley and in the other areas in which those changes have been made, is paying dividends. It is about investing in staff and the processes that allow that regional approach to work. <BR /> <BR />One benefit that we have seen over the past year is the breaking down of silos across our trusts. Those silos were not intentional or created by anyone in particular, but they grew up over time. We now see our health service colleagues working across sectors, trusts, primary care, community pharmacy and secondary care.”
“I thank the Deputy Chair of the Health Committee for her question. I apologise for not being able to brief her and the Chair prior to making the statement, as has been my normal practice, due to an Executive meeting this morning. <BR /> <BR />One of the things that we have done during the pandemic is establish the elective care centre in the Lagan Valley Hospital. That is proving to be a great asset to our health service across Northern Ireland. It is about establishing that centre as part of the long-term solution to reduce the number of people waiting for elective care, but, as I said in my statement, it must be done through a regional approach. We must look at treating patients faster rather than closer to their homes.”
“I recognise that there are many pressing rival demands on the public purse in Northern Ireland and that huge issues face every Department, and I fully accept that the Executive have limited room for manoeuvre in budget terms — decisions are taken in London, and we have to play the cards that we are dealt — but I cannot think of a more pressing issue facing us than waiting times. It cries out for action. It is a daily rebuke to the standing of the House and to the reputation of politics. It leaves thousands and thousands of our people — our fellow citizens and neighbours — in avoidable pain. We owe it to them to do much, much better. Mr Speaker, I commend the statement to the Assembly.”
“To put waiting lists right, we will need more staff in our health service, but how can you recruit additional people to the workforce if there is no certainty that you will have the money to keep paying them next year? How do you sign up more young people for the required years of training on the basis of single-year funding?”
“It cannot be done on the basis of money that is here today, gone next year.”
“They want us to build back better and to learn the lessons of the pandemic regarding capacity, resilience and investment. I share that ambition 100%, and I believe that the people of Northern Ireland do too. However, I fear that, without a significant and recurrent funding commitment from the Executive, we will be severely restricted in our ability to deliver and will be fighting the scourge of waiting lists with at least one hand tied behind our back. <BR /> <BR />I ask Members and my Executive colleagues to reflect on what I have said today. I look forward to having further constructive discussions about how we collectively address this most serious issue. I conclude by appealing for unity on waiting times across the House. We must start to put it right. It is a long-term task that needs long-term recurrent funding.”
“Such a failure would also be morally reprehensible, as we must not lose sight of the fact that, for the last five to six years, despite all the advances in medication and technologies, growing numbers of people have come to harm because they have not received the treatment that they deserve. Who does not have a loved one, a friend or a relative who, at some point now or in the future, will need to access an elective procedure? As a House, we owe it to all our citizens to now tackle the elective waiting lists. <BR /> <BR />To address that burning issue, in the near future I will publish for consultation a cancer recovery plan, an elective care framework and the urgent and emergency care review. Our great staff want us to be ambitious about the future of Health and Social Care.”
“An incremental year-on-year increasing allocation will be required, and it could take five to 10 years to return waiting times to an acceptable level. Longer-term surety of funding at a significant scale will enable innovations in-house and with independent sector providers. <BR /> <BR />Mr Speaker, I again thank you for the opportunity to speak today. At the heart of my address is a genuine concern for the people of Northern Ireland, the hundreds of thousands of people on our elective care waiting lists and the many more who will need access to those services in the future. Failure to tackle the elective care waiting lists will impact not just on those who are currently waiting but on all those who will need access in the future. The issue affects us all.”
“One-off COVID funding cannot be effectively deployed in rebuilding services as that requires us to make multi-year commitments to training places and to appoint people to permanent posts in order to attract and retain staff. We require major sustained investments to rebuild our services. In particular, increasing the capacity of our elective care system, whether in-house or in the independent sector, requires a significant recurrent funding commitment. Only with such a commitment can we begin to invest in the staff and infrastructure required to make progress. At a minimum, a recurrent source of earmarked funding agreed in advance is needed to close the capacity gap and to address the patient backlog.”
“Tragically, as it stands, I cannot make any substantial inroads into improving the waiting list position that I have just outlined. That said, I welcome the £52 million for Agenda for Change pay, which will enable pay parity with England to continue in 2021-22. Likewise, the announcement that £20 million for safe staffing will now be funded from Barnett consequentials is a positive move. <BR /> <BR />It has to be recognised that, while the additional resource allocations in the Budget are to be welcomed, the non-recurrent nature of much of the funding means that I will still face some difficult decisions. The present funding model that we operate within is not fit for purpose. What is really needed is a multi-year Budget, and, unfortunately, the Executive have not received that from Westminster.”
“All those allocations, such as the additional grant support to the air ambulance and a range of our community and voluntary sector organisations, as well as the major funds that I hope to be able to announce this week, have been made possible as a result of the one-off COVID funds made available to Northern Ireland during 2020-21. I would, of course, love to allocate further recurrent funding to all those areas, but, as ever, the available recurrent funding is not keeping up with the levels of demand and need. <BR /> <BR />As Members will be aware, the Executive's Budget has now been announced by the Finance Minister. I recognise that the 2021-22 Budget allocation was disappointing for all Departments and that the scale of pressures significantly exceeds the funding available. From my perspective, the Budget is extremely disappointing.”
“The support fund will provide practical support and acknowledgement to what is such an important sector.”
“However, as I have repeatedly stressed, one-off non-recurrent funds cannot provide the long-term fix that our health service requires. Nevertheless, they have been vital during the emergency that we have faced during the pandemic. I will continue to utilise such funding to the best of my ability for as long as it is available. <BR /> <BR />In recent weeks, I have been able to allocate one-off funds to specific priority areas. The debt that the health service and wider society owe to unpaid carers, for instance, cannot be overstated. Without the care provided by family members and friends, many vulnerable people would have been plunged into full-scale crisis over the past 12 months. I have allocated £4 million to a new carers' support fund that will provide support for charities working for and with carers.”
“I am pleased to confirm that it will be accompanied by an important mental health support scheme, one that will be appropriately resourced to produce greater levels of mental health supports and interventions. The final details of both funds are being concluded. I hope that, once they have been announced in the coming days, they will demonstrate the importance that I place on recovering and strengthening those crucial services and supporting the organisations that will be central to that. <BR /> <BR />It is widely recognised that addressing the waiting-list backlog and reforming services to ensure future sustainability is a complex and long-term issue and one that requires recurrent funding commitments. Let me make it clear: one-off COVID funds have been essential for health and social care over the past 12 months.”
“In addition, cancer charities struggle to continue to deliver current services and develop new services to people suffering from cancer, while managing the impact of falling income streams. To support cancer services, I have used both transformation and COVID-19 funding to set up two grant schemes. The first used transformation funding of £600,000, which covered the period from December 2020 to 31 March 2021 and enabled charities to deliver a range of key services to support people living with cancer during the pandemic. I hope to announce further details of the second scheme, which will be aligned with the three-year time frame of the cancer recovery plan, later this week.”
“I understand the worry and concern that long waiting times can cause for patients and their families. I am committed to dealing with that problem. Therefore, I am finalising a cancer recovery plan: "Building Back: Rebuilding Better". The plan seeks to make recommendations to redress the disruption to cancer services caused by the pandemic. The cancer recovery plan is also fully aligned with the short-term recommendations in the cancer strategy and will focus on the three-year period until March 2024. The recommendations cover 11 key areas from screening through to palliative care and have been co-produced with the Health and Social Care Board and colleagues from across the health and social care trusts. <BR /> <BR />Substantial costs are associated with the delivery of the recovery plan and the strategy.”
“<BR /> <BR />As we continue to stabilise and rebuild services in these challenging circumstances, it is important to note that all patients are treated according to clinical priority as determined by specialist clinicians. One of my primary aims is to ensure the continued delivery of high-quality cancer services, provided, of course, that it is safe to do so. At present, trusts are keeping the position under daily review and are reinstating red-flag surgery and rescheduling patients as quickly as possible. Fortunately, the vast majority of patients who experienced a delay from January to March 2021 have since had their treatment completed or have a confirmed plan in place. <BR /> <BR />The COVID-19 pandemic has, undoubtedly, had a devastating impact on cancer services.”
“<BR /> <BR />In June 2020, I established a cancer services rebuilding cell to oversee the resumption of cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment in clinically safe environments as quickly as possible and to protect those services as much as possible throughout the pandemic. Taking into account existing capacity constraints and the ongoing threat of COVID-19, on 7 October 2020, I published a policy statement setting out my Department's approach to the rebuilding and stabilisation of cancer services. That included a stabilisation plan for oncology and haematology and cancer services rebuild plans. Details are available on my Department's website.”
“Bringing our waiting lists down to an acceptable level is a long-term effort, requiring a recurrent funding commitment. <BR /> <BR />I appreciate that many Members have specific concerns about our cancer services. My Department has much activity under way to stabilise and improve diagnosis, treatment and life chances of cancer patients here. Staff in health and social care trusts have worked hard to ensure that systemic anti-cancer therapies and radiotherapy have been protected throughout the surge, and those treatments have been offered as an alternative to surgery whenever possible.”
“On top of that, our outdated configuration of services means that staffing resources and expertise are too often stretched too thinly across the system. <BR /> <BR />The latest available figures on our waiting lists suggest that, at the end of December 2020, more than 320,000 patients were waiting for their first consultant-led outpatient appointment; more than 105,000 patients were waiting for inpatient or day-case treatment; and around 145,000 patients were waiting for a diagnostic test. To address that issue, I can today announce that I intend shortly to publish an elective care framework. The purpose of the framework is to set out both the immediate and long-term actions and funding requirements needed to tackle our waiting lists.”
“<BR /> <BR />Prior to COVID-19, the trend in demand for hospital-based elective care services had been increasing, largely because of the fact that we have a growing, ageing population with a greater prevalence of chronic health problems. That increase in demand was not matched by the corresponding increase in health service budgets necessary to increase our capacity. Patient demand for elective care services continues to exceed capacity across a range of specialities. As a result, even before the pandemic, the number of people waiting longer than the target waiting times was increasing. Our inadequate capacity includes well-documented and significant staffing pressures in many parts of our system. Underinvestment in staffing in the past decade is the exact opposite of what was required.”
“<BR /> <BR />I have also pushed ahead with the much-needed reform of our urgent and emergency care services, and fantastic progress has been made. That not only puts us in a stronger position for the future but has allowed us to manage the impact of COVID-19 more effectively; indeed, I intend to publish for consultation in the near future further proposed steps to reform that important service. <BR /> <BR />Despite all those initiatives and the incredible dedication of all our Health and Social Care staff, we face a burning platform. The pandemic has had a significant impact on our already appalling waiting lists. Arguably, the greatest strategic challenge facing my Department and, indeed, the Executive as a whole is the urgent need to address those waiting lists.”
“That will ensure that any available theatre capacity across Northern Ireland is allocated to the patients most in need, both during a surge and in the future. It includes fully maximising all available in-house Health and Social Care (HSC) and independent sector capacity. While that may mean that patients will need to travel further for their surgery, I would rather see the highest-priority treatments delivered across Northern Ireland than lower-priority treatment delivered locally. The Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) also continues to work closely with independent sector providers to increase the capacity available to provide elective care in the coming months. Access to the independent sector will also be managed on a regional basis.”
“On actions to maintain elective services and to reform services, we have created Northern Ireland’s first regional day-procedure centre at Lagan Valley Hospital in the South Eastern Trust. The day-procedure centre has been providing support for the region, particularly for urgent cancer diagnostic work. Similarly, surgeons from across Northern Ireland have been travelling to the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) in Enniskillen to provide surgery that could not be provided at other sites owing to the rising number of COVID-positive inpatients. <BR /> <BR />I have also announced a new regional approach to orthopaedic surgery. It involves developing a networked regional system of dedicated hubs. <BR /> <BR />As I have mentioned, I have also established a new regional approach to the prioritisation of surgery.”
“It was about maintaining ICU care for everyone who required it, COVID and non-COVID patients alike. Despite those challenges, a number of actions have been taken to maintain elective services as much as possible. We have also pushed ahead with important reforms of our urgent and emergency care services. Those initiatives demonstrate that, despite the pandemic, we have continued to deliver much-needed reform of services. I will now turn to some of those initiatives in more detail.”
“<BR /> <BR />Staff were redeployed to help to manage the high number of patients who were being admitted to our hospitals and to allow the system to increase critical care capacity. For the past year, rightly and unavoidably, our priority has been urgent and emergency care and providing ICU care to those who needed it. It was not lockdown that added to waiting lists and led to much-needed operations being postponed; it was the virus. Our system, like systems all over the world, simply could not maintain a normal service, given the surge in patients who required life-saving and immediate interventions. <BR /> <BR />Staff had to be redeployed, and agonising choices had to be made. That was not about prioritising one condition over another but about providing care to the sickest patients quickly.”
“I still want to see as much activity delivered as quickly as we can. <BR /> <BR />Having published the immediate trust rebuild plans, I want to spend some time on our growing waiting lists and waiting times. There is no doubt that the pandemic has had a devastating impact on our hospital services and particularly on elective care. The downturn in elective surgery, while deeply regrettable, reflects the unprecedented pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not right that any patient should wait longer than is clinically appropriate for surgery. I fully understand the distress and anxiety that long waiting times cause, particularly when patients are suffering pain and discomfort.”
“I am also pleased that the trust rebuild plans reflect our many regional initiatives, not least my action to ensure that all elective surgery is prioritised in line with greatest clinical need and is not dependent on a patient’s postcode. <BR /> <BR />Alongside the trust rebuild plans that have been published today, a data annex has been included that sets out the trust activity projections for the three-month period of April to June 2021. The activity projections for May and June are indicative at this stage and will be reviewed in early May. That reflects the ongoing high degree of uncertainty that we continue to face, but it is also because I want to make sure that, if it becomes clear over the coming weeks that trusts can do more, I expect them to do that, even in the context of many competing challenges and uncertainties.”