To ask the Minister of Health (i) for an update on his plans to turn Belfast City Hospital into a cancer surgery hub following its period spent as a COVID-19 Nightingale Hospital; and (ii) whether doing so will reduce cancer surgery waiting lists.

On 15 June 2021 I published the Elective Care Framework. The framework sets out a five year plan with firm, time bound proposals for how we will systematically tackle the backlog of patients waiting longer than Ministerial standards, and how we will invest in and transform services to allow us to meet the population’s demands in future.

The Framework recognises that Northern Ireland’s main elective site for complex surgery is the Belfast City Hospital (BCH) and it is important to protect regional specialist elective care at this hospital. The focus is on the development of green pathways within the site with a view to the BCH becoming a green site for complex surgery, serving the region.