To ask the Minister of Health what targets he has for reducing waiting times for joint replacement.

Waiting times for joint replacement surgery were already significant at the time I was appointed Health Minister. Unfortunately, because of the impact of the continued pressures on our health service, staff from the orthopaedic service have had to be redeployed to increase unscheduled care capacity. The consequence of this is that waiting times have increased further. This, together with the continuing and ongoing impact of the pandemic, has had a direct impact on the ability to set meaningful targets.

On 15 June, I published the Elective Care Framework which includes a range of short to longer term actions for orthopaedics. One of the immediate actions of the framework is the delivery of a recovery plan for orthopaedics which will set out priority actions, targets and timescales to bring orthopaedic activity back to commissioned levels and to increase activity as rapidly as possible.

Another key action of the framework is that the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) will work with Trusts to produce three-monthly delivery plans setting out how they will continue to restore services and reach required activity levels. The HSCB will also produce an annual Elective Care Delivery Plan which will include details of Trust performance, realistic annual activity targets, projected activity for independent sector contracts and in-house additionality, and overall demand/capacity information for all specialties, including orthopaedics.

Subject to a commitment from the NI Executive that the necessary recurrent funding will be made available, the Department’s clear aim is that:

By March 2026, no-one should wait more than 52 weeks for a first outpatient appointment and inpatient/day case treatment; or, 26 weeks for a diagnostics appointment;

By March 2026, we will have eradicated the gap between demand and capacity for elective care.