Regardless of who wins the UK general election, there will be cost-cutting consequences for the North's health department, writes Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor
STORMONT HEALTH Minister Michael McGimpsey faces next month’s Westminster election in the certain knowledge that further pressure on his department’s budget will follow – regardless of which British party forms the next government.
Although not a Westminster candidate, McGimpsey is supportive of his Ulster Unionist Party’s link up with the British Conservatives. They have pledged to reducing public expenditure in an effort to cut the UK’s enormous deficit in the lifetime of the next parliament.
If the Tories form the next government, the annual block grant to Northern Ireland, worth more than £7 billion, will be closely examined and there will be knock-on consequences for the largest-spending Stormont department which is under his control.
Around half of the Stormont budget is allocated to health, and finance minister Sammy Wilson has already been pressing for efficiencies to be made.
This prompted McGimpsey to warn an Assembly health committee meeting just two months ago that there would be “dire consequences” if cuts already proposed by Wilson and backed by DUP members of the Executive are implemented.
They have agreed that some £367 million (€128 million) needs to be pruned from the overall Northern Ireland budget in the forthcoming financial year, and that around £113 million of that must come from health.
McGimpsey, facing additional pressure from the costs of combating the swine flu pandemic and the recently implemented plan to abolish prescription charges, is fighting back.
Wilson has defended his drive for savings on the basis that every department is facing budget pressures and health cannot be any different. He further justifies his move on the grounds that health, despite being by far the greatest spender, is being pressed to achieve the lowest levels of savings in percentage terms.
However, the health minister continues to point to the sharply rising levels of demand over the past year, caused in part by swine flu, and has warned graphically that resources are overstretched and that the system cannot cope with what the finance minister is demanding.
He told the health committee in January there existed a £600 million (€683 million) shortfall between spending in Northern Ireland and that in Britain, using this to call for more money rather than a spending cut. Pointing to levels of demand for both health and social services in Northern Ireland, which are proportionately higher, he warned that services across a range of areas would be seriously affected. He cited the elderly, children, carers, mothers and users of mental health services, warning that all would suffer since such services were already under stress.
Following the publication of the Ryan report in the Republic, McGimpsey is also under pressure from victims of child abuse who are anxious to have an inquiry in the North.
The minister forwarded a paper to his Executive colleagues three weeks ago in which he responded to the call by the Assembly last autumn for an investigation into the extent of abuse in Northern Ireland.
The options, all of which are bound to have cost implications, which he presented to other ministers have not been revealed, but he made clear that he wanted the Executive to respond as one to the growing clamour for action.
“The twin issues of historical institutional and clerical abuse are very complex and responding to them in a sensitive and meaningful way represents a huge challenge for all of us,” he said.
“At the heart of this are all the victims, who as children suffered terrible abuse at the hands of those who were supposed to be protecting and caring for them. I have therefore issued an Executive paper which will enable the Executive as a whole to form a view on the way ahead.”