To ask the Minister of Health whether he intends to extend funding for the NI Primary Eye-care Assessment and Referral Services in each Health and Social Care Trust in the 2020/21 financial year; and whether he will consider funding the scheme for a longer period than a year.

The Northern Ireland Primary Eye-care Assessment and Referral Service (NI PEARS) is funded from the General Ophthalmic Services budget. The service is already provided across all Health and Social Care Trusts.

The ability to provide certainty of future funding for individual services is constrained by the time period over which the Northern Ireland Executive, and in turn the Department, are allocated funding.

The Department has faced consecutive single year budgets which is far from ideal in terms of financial management and the planning and management of our services. I will continue to seek the kind of multi-year funding commitments that are necessary if health and social care services are to be put on a sustainable footing.