To ask the Minister of Health for his assessment of the waiting time for a child, with an urgent referral from Scrabo Children's Centre, to get a first appointment with an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist in the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust.

Mr Nesbitt

My Department is very aware of the challenges facing the South Eastern Trust in providing ear, nose and throat services. The trust has had difficulty recruiting consultants in recent years, and, in July 2025, there were three vacancies. To address that, my officials have been working closely with the Belfast Trust and the South Eastern Trust to develop a greater Belfast ENT service. I am pleased to advise that that collaboration has recently secured the recruitment of four new consultants. In time, they will provide significant additional capacity in the wider Belfast Trust and South Eastern Trust catchment area.

Mr Nesbitt

I accept that the waiting times for services and treatment are extremely frustrating for patients and their families. I assure the Member that my officials and I have been working to address paediatric waiting lists and to modernise and standardise practices and pathways right across Northern Ireland. The Belfast Trust and the South Eastern Trust have validation exercises under way. Those lists are being amalgamated. As well as validating lists, the exercise involves consultants clinically e-triaging referrals. That is to determine whether the referral requires the patient to see a consultant in outpatients or whether they could go directly to surgery, diagnostics, audiology or to another professional, or, indeed, whether they should be returned to primary care, where they might be managed by primary care with advice. It means that only patients who need to see an ENT consultant will remain on the waiting list. It is a standardisation of clinical pathways. It is being implemented by the Belfast Trust and the South Eastern Trust but will be rolled out right across Northern Ireland. Therefore, we are doing what we can.