Ulster Unionist Party Health spokesperson Roy Beggs MLA has claimed that the NHS in Northern Ireland is facing one of its biggest ever challenges following the revelations coming from the Royal Victoria Hospital.  The East Antrim MLA has warned that as further deaths are now investigated in other A&Es, public confidence in the health service faces being irrevocably shaken. 

Roy Beggs MLA said; 

“The National Health Service is without doubt one of our greatest public institutions and it has a legacy of which we can all be immensely proud of. It has served Northern Ireland admirably for over 65 years but rarely before has it faced such serious challenges as it does now. 

“The recent revelations from the Belfast Trust that delays in treatment for five patients presenting at the A&E in the Royal Victoria Hospital may have been contributing factors in their deaths has rocked our local health system to its very core. 

“It is shameful to think that poor management and a lack of resources in our country’s biggest A&E unit may have contributed to these deaths. 

“The failure to subsequently inform some of these families signified either a tragic failure of judgement at best, or at worst a cover-up.  

“It has since emerged that these may not be the only cases and that there may yet be more to come. 

“There has been a systemic failure of leadership, not just by the Minister of Health, but by the management of the Belfast Trust. The performance over recent weeks and days by Edwin Poots and Colm Donaghy, Chief Executive of the Belfast Trust, has been far below acceptable standards. 

“Senior officials, by refusing to reveal the true extent of the problem, have failed to act in an open and transparent manner. I sincerely hope that their reticence is in no way an attempt by them to hide a degree of culpability.

“People need confidence that when they walk through the doors of any of our hospitals that they will be treated on time and in a safe manner. Unfortunately there have been too many cases over the last year that this has not been the case 

“Allegations of staff being bullied or being pressurised to ‘stop the clock’ to avoid breaching official targets in the RVH I fear is indicative of a much wider crisis across our Accident and Emergency provision.”