Health service reform: Alliance says nothing can be off the table

No proposals can be off the table when it comes to transforming the health service, the Alliance Party has said.

The health minister has said plans to reshape hospital care will be released for consultation in the autumn.

The plans will show how hospitals and supporting services could be reorganised.

Sinn Féin also said it supported changes to deliver "world-leading health services".

Under the new plans patients could find they have further to travel to access some services at specialist clinics.

Recently, elective surgery hubs which will help tackle waiting lists were announced in Musgrave Park Hospital and Omagh.

Paula Bradshaw said there would be no 'parish pump politics' from the Alliance Party

Speaking on BBC Northern Ireland's Sunday Politics programme, South Belfast assembly member Paula Bradshaw said her party was supportive of the proposals.

"We are all up for these mega clinics, specialism centres, centres for excellence," the Alliance Party health spokesperson said.

"We are up for those discussions, but they have to make sense and we also have to make sure that the clinicians and the multi-disciplinary teams that will be involved in delivering the service that they're up for that."

"We are up for any discussion at this moment in time, there are no sacred cows at this point and there'll be no parish pump politics from the Alliance party in this regard."

She said Alliance hoped the plans for the reconfigurations of services would be "bold and ambitious".

'World-leading'

Sinn Féin's Colm Gildernew told the BBC his party welcomed discussions on health reforms and it has "at every point of the way supported the need to sustain and deliver and develop world-leading health services".

"We welcome that the minister had us into the meeting recently to discuss the launch of this document and we will look forward to drilling into the detail around how this is going to develop and the detail will be important," he said.

• Stormont paralysis puts patients at risk - health leaders

A cross-party meeting of members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) was held on Thursday to discuss the Department of Health's next phase of transforming the health service.

The move came amid political and budgetary uncertainty.

Health Minister Robin Swann of the Ulster Unionist Party, and other ministers, are currently acting as caretakers as political disagreement has blocked the formation of an executive.

They can continue to run their respective departments, but no new decisions, such as agreeing a budget, can be taken without an executive.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has said it will not go into an executive until there are significant changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The party has also refused to support the election of a Speaker so the assembly can not sit.