Northern Ireland’s Health Minister has admitted he has a “decision” to make around potentially retiring next year, as he also revealed “changes” are coming later this year on the structure of trust officials.
Ulster Unionist Party leader Mike Nesbitt opened up about his future in politics and admitted before he took the health job he was “happy on the back benches” and “cruising towards retirement”.
Speaking on BBC NI’s The Nolan Show, Mr Nesbitt said: “Last February when Stormont came back, I was very happy on the back benches. I was, in my terms, cruising towards retirement.
” I was the economy spokesman and I was representing my party on the Policing Board.
“Events dear boy events came along, Robin moved on and I couldn’t resist the challenge and it is a very privileged challenge of going into health and then the other job came along.
“The position I am in today is that I am going to have to make a decision around about May of 2026, about whether I stick with whether I am going to retire, or whether I am going to go again.
“Events have changed and the circumstances are different.”
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Yesterday the minister said he was facing a £400 million funding shortfall, adding that making savings to balance the budget would have “consequences” for service delivery, including waiting lists.
Earlier this week, Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill said the situation facing the health service in Northern Ireland is “dire and diabolical”.
Ms O’Neill expressed concern at the scenes witnessed both inside and outside emergency departments in recent weeks, with patients facing long waits in the back of ambulances because of capacity issues.
When challenged on whether he had made mistakes so far in his time as minister amid the ongoing crisis in the Northern Ireland health service, Mr Nesbitt added: “Not that I am aware of.
“But I do ask myself could I have done better and I don’t know the answer to that in a specific sense, but I imagine the answer is; ‘Yes, I could have done better’.
“Because you can always do better.
“There is no hidden secret. The problem in terms of EDs is the flow.
“It is the flow and the big problem is what we are calling the back door. Patients who are ready to leave hospital but they cant because they don’t have a care home bed or they don’t have a domiciliary package.”
Meanwhile, the minister revealed there are potentially changes coming to the structure of health trusts around the country, but refused to be drawn on whether he would be introducing a chief executive or tzar in the service.
He also ruled out reducing the number of local health trusts from five to one combined trust.
“I have thought about that. Northern Ireland is small enough and the population is of a sufficient number that you could say why have five geographical trusts when you could have one,” he added.
“If I did that, I am convinced it would become a distraction and so much energy and resource would be put into the transformation of the structures, that actually delivery would lose a bit of focus.
“In my head those five trusts are one and what I want them to do… is find best practice wherever it is and roll it out so it is common practice and that we have regional services that are consistent.
“There are changes in terms of senior officials coming this year.
“Some people have decided to move on, some people are at an age where they are thinking about retirement. So there will be some changes and that gives an opportunity to look not only at replacements… but also how we structure things.
“I think there is an opportunity for a restructuring, but is not a major restructuring, but it is looking about perhaps having somebody who is more across the day to day operations of the geographic trusts particularly.”