Editorial: ​There are other reasons for the NHS crisis in Northern Ireland

Morning View

The health minister has said that there will still be a mammoth spending deficit in the NHS of almost £200 million.

Robin Swann has told executive ministers and members of the health committee that "deep dive" cuts to health spending would not avoid a multimillion-pound overspend in the department.

These are alarming figures. Yet it is also striking that the health service has been allocated more than half of the executive's £14.5 billion resource budget.

Mr Swann was seeking an additional £1 billion for health – an amount that represented the entirety of the uncommitted funding available for distribution among all Stormont departments. Instead, an additional £500 million was allocated by the Stormont executive in April.

Trusts are said to have expressed "grave concerns" about the impact on health and social care services at both local and regional level on suggested savings.

But there is almost no political or media focus on the implications and causes of this shortage.

For almost a quarter of a century a series of expert reports have said that Northern Ireland health provision is inefficient and includes us having too many hospitals. We need a smaller number of world class hospitals.

This has been repeatedly ignored by the Stormont that we were told so urgently needed to be returned. In fact, devolution has made health problems worse.

And there is another factor factor that is never talked about in health, or indeed in other aspects of government.

All pay demands have been supported by all parties. Barely an MLA among the 90 of them said a word against the wave of strikes.

The return of the assembly was hailed a way to pay people more across the public sector. But this helps mean that there is no money for the services themselves.