Ulster Unionist Councillor Trevor Wilson has labelled the consultation exercise surrounding the recently announced cuts to the health service a farce and sham.  He was speaking after the Northern Trust’s only public consultation meeting was announced for the middle of the morning on Monday 25 September.

Trevor Wilson said:

“It is clear that the so-called public consultation on the Northern Health Trust’s proposed cuts is a sham. If they were seriously concerned about hearing the views of as many people as possible they would not have planned the only local public meeting for 10am on a Monday morning.

“The Trust has a legal duty to consider the views of local people, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that the current consultation is already a foregone conclusion. There is a major reduction of services planned for the Mid Ulster Hospital so local people are obviously very concerned and some are eager to engage with the Trust. The Trust’s decision to hold the only public meeting in the entire Mid Ulster area in Cookstown on a Monday morning, when most people are at work, is indicative of just how inconsequential they view the meetings.  

“Indeed, of the four public meetings the Northern Trust is holding across it’s area – only one is in the evening.

“There has been absolutely no common-sense used in drawing up these cuts. They were picked because they save the most amount of money in the shortest period of time.  

“The Northern Trust has been told it needs to make £13m worth of savings, but have only been given six months to do so. Given around 75% of total Trust expenditure goes on salaries it has been known from the very start that patients were going to be at the brunt end of these savings.

“It’s frankly outrageous that at the same time as local health waiting times are spiralling out of control nearly two and half thousand surgeries are going to be cut, mainly split between the Mid Ulster and Whiteabbey Hospitals.

“Similarly, the proposed restrictions on offering new domiciliary packages and residential care places will make the already existing pressures in our social care sector far worse. It makes no sense that at a time when the local population is ageing, and older people frequently have to remain in hospitals longer than they medically need to, that the Trust is proposing to slash the support in the community for older people to allow them to return or remain at home.

“The Northern Trust needs to urgently reconsider some of these proposals. It’s not acceptable that savings are being placed ahead of the welfare and safety of local patients. Perhaps that is why they aren’t keen to make the public meetings very accessible. The entire exercise is flawed.”