To ask the Minister of Health for his assessment of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on waiting times for people awaiting a diagnosis for Crohn's Disease or Colitis.

It isn’t right that any patient should wait longer than is clinically appropriate for assessment and I fully understand the distress and anxiety that long waiting times cause, particularly when patients are suffering pain and discomfort.

There is no doubt that the pandemic has had a devastating impact on our hospital services, particularly elective care. Waiting times have been unacceptable for some time and, regrettably, they have deteriorated further as our health service, quite rightly, focused on responding to the pandemic.

A number of initiatives have been introduced in recent years to improve waiting times for Crohn’s, Colitis and other inflammatory bowel diseases. For example, diagnosis of IBD is now supported by gastroenterology primary care pathways and the provision of laboratory tests, specifically Calprotectin testing. These have enabled clinicians to prioritise outpatient referrals for IBD and better manage patients who are already undergoing treatment for IBD.

Bringing our waiting times to an acceptable level across all specialties is a long term collective effort requiring sustained and substantial investment and additional staffing. It is in that context that I recently announced my intention to publish an elective care framework which will set out both the immediate and longer term actions and funding requirements.