To ask the Minister of Health to detail the timescale for red flag referrals for cancer returning to pre-pandemic levels.

The pandemic has had a devastating impact on a wide range of health and social care services. Unfortunately, the scale of the pressures we have faced has even impacted on red flag/urgent cancer treatments and surgery. These postponements are under continuous review to ensure that any delay in providing patients with the care they need is minimised.

I have established a new regional approach to prioritisation of surgery to ensure that any available theatre capacity across Northern Ireland is allocated to those patients most in need, both during the surge in COVID-19 admissions and in the future. All Trusts are maintaining urgent bookable theatre lists for emergency surgery and, where capacity allows, are utilising capacity within those lists for cancer surgery. This includes fully maximising all available in-house Health and Social Care (HSC) and Independent Sector capacity.

Trusts are keeping the position under daily review and are reinstating red flag surgery and reschedule patients as quickly as possible. The new regional process highlighted above will ensure that patients are seen according to clinical priority and not on the basis of their Trust of residence.

The HSC will continue to explore all opportunities to maximise and expand available capacity, but it remains impossible to predict when red flag referrals for cancer will return to pre-pandemic levels.