NI health: Minister announces expert committee to review health services

A new independent expert advisory committee is to review how services will be delivered across hospitals in Northern Ireland.

Health minister Robbie Butler said the Reconfiguration Committee will provide him with advice on major or controversial proposals for permanent changes to health and social care services.

It follows a major political and public row around the future of Emergency General Surgery at Causeway Hospital which triggered the resignation of Mike Nesbitt .

Announcing the move on Thursday, Butler said it will bring together independent clinical and public-interest expertise.

"Crucially, it will be able to scrutinise the evidence underpinning proposals rather than simply accepting that evidence at face value.

"It will consider patient safety, service quality, clinical effectiveness, and long-term sustainability," the minister said.

BBC News NI understands that the committee will be made up of health professionals most likely from outside of Northern Ireland who will provide independent advice on how health trusts should proceed.

It is expected that a panel will review evidence already gathered from public consultations including recommendations made in previous reports from several Royal Colleges and Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) teams.

There have been several major reviews and inquiries into the Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Service (NIHSCS) which included the number of hospitals in NI and the duplication of some services across hospital sites.

They include the Bengoa , Donaldson Reviews, Transforming Your Care and the Hayes review in 2001.

Butler said the committee's advice will be provided directly to him as minister and in the interests of transparency and accountability that advice will be published.

Dr Alan Stout, who chairs the British Medical Association's (BMA) Northern Ireland Council, said the establishment of the new committee had come as a surprise.

"We actually haven't been consulted on it or it hasn't been discussed with us before," he told BBC News NI.

"There is a real scepticism that the last thing that we need is yet another committee, more reports and more evidence, whenever we have a wealth of evidence, a wealth of reports that are telling us and have been telling us for 10 years what we need to do."

He said the committee can not be "another layer of review" at a time when "definitive decisions" needed to be taken quickly.

"We are seeing massive problems right across our service, right across every trust, every hospital, general practice," he said.

"We're seeing transformation by collapse at the moment."

Sinn Féin MLA Philip McGuigan, who chairs Stormont's health committee, said the proposed reconfiguration committee "could ensure public confidence in future decisions".

That, he said, was dependent on it being "genuinely independent, has access to all relevant evidence and ensures the voices of clinicians, patients, healthcare workers and local communities are heard."

He said he will now ask for further detail on its remit, membership and the timeframe for establishing the new committee.

McGuigan added; "We need reform, but it must be properly funded, planned on a whole-system basis and undertaken with the best for patient outcomes, regardless of where they live, as the desired outcome."

Alliance MLA Nuala McAllister said Butler's decision to establish a new committee proves he is a "caretaker health minister who will dodge difficult decisions".

"We urgently need to drive forward reconfiguration with evidence-based decision-making, and bring people with us on that journey through strong political leadership.

"Instead, we have more dither, delay and risk of unplanned service collapse," she said.

BBC News NI understands that the Department of Health had been planning to announce this panel several weeks ago but was finalising who might lead it.

Its understood the search was on for someone outside of Northern Ireland and who is not a politician.

While such a plan would have taken the politics out of health in the short term – Robbie Butler will still have the final say on what happens in the future.

Whether this committee or panel will have delivered their final report before next May's election is questionable.

There have been huge attempts to transform health and particularly hospital services for the past number of years.

This announcement of another independent committee will no doubt leave some people scratching their heads.

Does it feel like Northern Ireland is delaying the inevitable yet again or deferring the difficult decisions yet again – it is hard to argue any differently.