Ulster Unionist Health spokesperson, Jo-Anne Dobson MLA, has welcomed the news from Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt MP, that he will work towards a seven-day Health Service in England. However, she has challenged our local DUP Health Minister, Simon Hamilton MLA, to explain how and when he will begin these 'life-saving' reforms in Northern Ireland.

Commenting Mrs Dobson said:

"This is a sensible solution which will modernise services beyond five days a week and which will undoubtedly save lives.  Indeed, the Ulster Unionist Party included this very proposal in our 2015 Westminster Manifesto.

"Illness and injury don`t discriminate in terms of the time and day of the week they occur. People don't choose how and when they become ill - that's why extending evening and weekend consultant cover will reduce the higher number of deaths which studies have shown occur in our hospitals at weekends.

"However, decisions taken by successive DUP Health Ministers have left our Health Service on its knees.

"Waiting lists are spiralling out of control, routine operations continually cancelled, staff stretched to their limits and the service has been left cash-strapped by the flawed DUP/Sinn Fein budget agreement of 2011.

"The public would be right to ask, given this lamentable record, whether the Party which currently has control of our health service is fit to make such far-reaching changes.

"The patient should always be at the heart of the NHS. Their needs must always be the number one priority, and not the system or service.

"In recent years we have seen far too many sensible solutions simply left to gather dust on the shelves at Stormont - the move to a seven-day Health Service must not be allowed to become another.

"That's why I appeal to the Health Minister to urgently explain what discussions he intends to have with health professionals, front-line staff and patient groups to move this issue forward.

"A service which embraces change is one which will deliver best. I very much welcome the fact that this proposal is also recognised as a way of reducing unnecessary hospital deaths by the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

"The Ulster Unionist Party proposed this reform, we fully support it and will continue to work to see it implemented for the benefit of everyone in Northern Ireland."