Northern Ireland budget: Robin Swann warns delay 'sabotages health service'

Robin Swann said it is "hard to imagine a worse possible time to deprive our health service of budgetary certainty"

Further delays to a Stormont budget would be "tantamount to sabotaging the rebuilding of our health service", the health minister has warned.

Robin Swann made the comments in a statement setting out concerns about growing financial pressures.

The Northern Ireland Executive had not agreed a new budget when the DUP withdrew in February.

Since the start of the financial year, a standstill budget has been managed by civil servants.

However that sharply limits new spending decisions and reallocations of unspent funds cannot be made.

'Doubt, concern and insecurity'

Mr Swann said that as efforts are made to rebuild after the pandemic, it is "hard to imagine a worse possible time to deprive our health service of budgetary certainty across the short, medium and long term".

He added that trying to run a household with certainty on income levels would mean a situation "shrouded in doubt, concern and insecurity".

"Consider then that we are condemning a £7bn a year health and social care system to similar circumstances.

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

Robin Swann said he has to prepare for funding pressures on the health service to become "increasingly significant" as the year goes on

In previous periods of Stormont collapse, the secretary of state has taken Northern Ireland budget legislation through Westminster.

But Mr Swann warned that even with budget certainty he will still face difficult decisions.

"Our financial situation will undoubtedly be constrained whatever the final budget settlement. We will not be able to do everything we want," he said.

"I have to prepare for the eventuality that funding pressures in health will become increasingly significant as this financial year progresses.

"Under all the projections, we are currently forecasting an overspend for the year."

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As an example of the decisions he could face, he said a scheme that allows Northern Ireland citizens to receive treatment in the Republic of Ireland could not be supported when its current £5m budget runs out.

Meanwhile the three UK Royal Colleges of Physicians have also called on assembly members to take action to secure a multi-year budget for health and social care.

Prof Andrew Elder, president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, said: "Healthcare workers and patients need to know what to expect from health and social care over the coming years.

"A multi-year budget agreement will help to do that while giving the health department the tools to address treatment backlogs."