Ninety-four percent of of smear test slides which are currently being reviewed due to inadequate/inaccurate screening have now been processed, according to the Southern Trust’s chief executive,
Dr Maria O’Kane says the remainder is due to be checked by September 2024.
Dr O’Kane addressed the board on the many challenges being faced by the Trust – such as having to make do with a £400m budget deficit – but caveated that with more positive news around the smear test reviews.
The Trust chief executive commented: “I think the first point to recognise is that we have a recently appointed Health Minister, Mike Nesbitt.
“I have met with Minister Nesbitt on a couple of occasions now, and he has described being Health Minister as being the political honour of his life. I really look forward to working with him.
“In relation to the budget, that has been part of our discussions regionally, as well as internally.
“As we know, the Northern Ireland Assembly recently passed its first budget in three years, and for Health and Social Care it represents a 2.3% reduction in funding compared to the expenditure in 2023/24.
“It has left the health budget across Northern Ireland with a projected £400m deficit. The opening budget then led to an indicative budget allocation provided by the Strategic Planning & Performance Group (SPPG).
“They came forward to us in April 2022 and forecast a gross deficit in the Southern Trust of £59m. We’ve been set a savings target of £17m for this financial year, and then consideration, beyond that, for £42m.
“We have developed a significant savings programme across the Trust through what we’re calling the RISE programme, which will will be led by [director of Transformation and Improvement] Margaret O’Hagan, and essentially will take into consideration financial performance and workforce aspects across the entire Trust.
“We know that there will be significant challenges in delivering in relation to all of this. We have invested a lot of time in recent weeks, making sure that all of our staff across the Trust are aware of the challenges built into all of this.
“We know that the Department of Health carried out an EqIA (Equality Impact Assessment) in relation to all of this, and a 12-week consultation will be running from August 6 to August 29 for the entire region.
“The Health Minister stated that he would be very anxious about catastrophic impacts across the Health Service, and in terms of the savings paths we’ve submitted, those are in relation to low and medium impact, and that’s in keeping with the rest of the region.
“We’re familiar with the process of industrial action, and we had recent days of industrial action by the junior doctors and consultants.
“Recently, we had the closing statements of the Urology Services. This has involved a considerable amount of work. We submitted 650,000 pages of written evidence, 75 witnesses from the Southern Trust over a 95-day period.
“I would like to thank all of the staff and ex-staff who have been actively involved. I know that it made significant demands on time and energy, in particular emotional energy.
“The Covid Inquiry is ongoing, and visited Northern Ireland in recent time, and we had local representation from the Department of Health.
“The Infected Blood Inquiry identified failures in the system in relation to the infected blood scandal.
“Significant numbers of people across Northern Ireland are waiting for care, waiting for diagnostics.
“There are particularly long waits in relation to EMT and Urology. It’s very hard in recent reports to see improvements in activity across all of these areas.
“Across the whole Southern Trust, we’ve improved our activity by at least 10% in most areas across the Trust, and certainly in some areas it’s been as high as 40 and 50%.
“In relation to the cervical cytology review, in conjunction with the PHA (Public Health Agency) we’re continuing to work in collaboration with other Trusts across Northern Ireland to complete the work on this.
“Two days ago, we had reached 94% of the review [of the] slides. And I imagine even in the space of two days, we’ve made even more progress in relation to all of that.
“As you know, an additional phase has been added to the Southern Trust cervical screening review for over 3,000 women who’ve had more recent smear tests undertaken through the Northern Ireland screening programme.
“And it’s expected that work on the additional phase will begin after the main review has completed.
“We know that’s nearing completion now, and it will be finished in September 2024.
“[New electronic system] Encompass is another area then that I think is increasingly beginning to preoccupy us.
“Our go live date hasn’t been finalised yet, but it is likely to be April to May of next year. This process for a single digital record for Northern Ireland across Health and Social Care was commenced in November last year.
“The biggest part of all of this will take place early next year, when we and the Western Trust go [live] together.
“We have been learning in earnest about this programme. We anticipate that when we go live, we will have support from those Trusts as well.
“By exposing our staff to this at an early stage, that seems to be really increasing people’s confidence and enthusiasm for this project.
“Daisy Hill Hospital’s paediatric theatre team and community dental service are delighted to be back in action in their dedicated theatre suite on the sixth floor.
“Due to a downturn in activity and redeployment of staff during the pandemic, the team had been providing a limited service for the most urgent patients from the hospital’s general theatres.
“Since April they have been back, providing two full days of dental surgery for children who have been waiting for extractions under general anaesthetic from Daisy Hill paediatric theatres.
“The team of anaesthetists, theatre staff, schedulers and community dental service, have been working hard to fit as many children in for surgery, and have achieved a significant improvement in the numbers of patients waiting.
“Professor Jones appeared before Stormont’s Health Committee recently, where he urged Health Minister Nesbitt to act on his children’s social care services report’s recommendations.
“The review published in June 2023 found more than 4,000 children were estimated to be on the waiting list for assessment and help from social care services.
“He made 53 recommendations which focused on pressures facing the system and recruitment of staff.
“Mr Jones said he was determined not to allow the children’s social services review to remain unimplemented, citing a number of previous reviews in NI that remain on the shelf, their recommendations ignored.
“Department of Health recent figures show that Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care wholetime equivalent workforce has increased by over 13% (7,738) in the past five years, with the number of nurses and midwives up by 16% (2,443) and medical and dental posts up by 15.8% (679) over the same period.
“Since 2019 – Southern Trust had the biggest increase in whole time equivalent (WTE) staff – 15.5% or 1,391 whole time equivalent.
“We’re probably in as good a place with nursing stability as we’ve ever been.
“The [former] Health Minister, prior to leaving, announced that there would be an increase in training places across Nursing and Midwifery, and an additional 40 training places in relation to social work.
“Given the huge demand made on social work and the huge shortage of social work staff across the Southern Trust and across Northern Ireland, this is really welcome.”
