AQW 43929/22-27

Mr Danny Donnelly
Alliance Party
East Antrim

Tabled Date: 15/04/2026
Answered On Date: 16/06/2026
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health to detail the number of Emergency Departments attendances during night-time economy hours, in 2025 in the (i) Belfast Health and Social Care Trust; and (ii) South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust, triaged as category (a) 4; and (b) 5, broken down by whether (i) no medical intervention was required; and (ii) the attendance could have been treated in an alternative setting by first aid.

Answer:

Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts do not routinely collect or report a standard data item that identifies Emergency Department (ED) attendances as alcoholrelated. Where alcohol consumption may be a contributing factor, ED attendances are recorded and coded according to the primary clinical reason for presentation (for example, a fall or injury), rather than alcohol use itself. As a result, alcoholrelated attendances cannot be reliably identified from routinely collected ED data.

In addition, “nighttime economy hours” is not a nationally defined reporting category within the Health and Social Care system. Producing the requested breakdown would therefore require bespoke extraction and locally agreed assumptions for:

defining nighttime hours;

identifying alcoholrelated attendances;

determining whether no medical intervention was required; and

assessing whether an attendance could have been treated in an alternative setting by first aid.

As such, the Department is unable to provide:

the number of alcoholsrelated ED attendances during nighttime economy hours in 2025 in the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust or the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust;

the breakdown of those attendances by triage category 4 or 5; or

the further breakdown by whether no medical intervention was required or whether the attendance could have been managed by first aid in an alternative setting.

For the same reasons, the associated costs of such attendances cannot be calculated, as the underlying activity data required to identify and cost alcoholrelated ED attendances is not available.

My Department is also unable to provide the total number of all ED attendances during nighttime economy hours in 2025, by triage category 4 and 5, broken down by whether no medical intervention was required or whether an alternative firstaid setting would have been appropriate, as these classifications are not routinely captured within ED datasets.

It should be noted that the main health services available late at night, during hours that could be considered part of the nighttime economy, are EDs and GP OutofHours services.