To ask the Minister of Health (i) why private cardiology appointments, including surgery, have been suspended at Royal Victoria Hospital; (ii) when private cardiology appointments will resume; and (iii) for his assessment of how this will impact patients who opted to pay privately due to long waiting lists.

Private treatment falls outside the remit of the Health and Social Care (HSC) sector and is therefore not a matter for my Department. The Belfast Trust has advised that private cardiac surgery has been temporarily suspended to allow the Trust to focus capacity and efforts on HSC patients. The Trust may be in a position to treat private patients again in the future, but this will be a matter for private providers to agree with the Belfast Trust.