AQW 31567/22-27

Mrs Michelle Guy
Alliance Party
Lagan Valley

Tabled Date: 18/09/2025
Answered On Date: 11/11/2025
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health to detail the number of patients removed from waiting lists in the last 12 months due to changes in treatment criteria of his Department or the Health and Social Care Trusts.

Answer:

The criteria for restricted procedures are monitored via the implementation of the Effective Use of Resources (EUR) policy. Publication of the updated EUR policy in 2023 coincided with a major programme of digitisation of patient records across all HSC Trusts namely, the Encompass Programme. As a result, the rollout of Encompass has temporarily limited the development of detailed reporting capabilities for restricted procedures, including data on patients removed from waiting lists because they no longer meet the criteria set out in the EUR policy.

My officials have confirmed that the most current data available relates to the 2023/24 period. This information has been noted in the recent report Performance of Restricted Procedures by Health Trusts published by the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) on 8 October 2025.

The Department of Health and five Health and Social Care Trusts acknowledge the recent NIAO report’s findings regarding gaps in monitoring, both within Trusts and the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG). Efforts are currently focused on identifying effective ways to incorporate future monitoring into the new digital infrastructure.

Over the next 12 months, the Department of Health and the five Health and Social Care Trusts are committed to strengthening the performance, governance, and oversight of the EUR policy and will take forward the necessary actions to support this.

It is anticipated that, upon completion of this work, the information requested will be more readily accessible. In the meantime, the 2023/24 data remains the most up-to-date, as outlined in the NIAO report referenced above.