To ask the Minister of Health to detail the steps he is taking to ensure planned operations and surgeries can go ahead alongside COVID-19 vaccination and treatment efforts.

Every effort continues to be made to protect elective care activity; however, service delivery continues to be impacted by the necessity for strict infection prevention and control measures, the impact of Covid-19 on the available workforce, and longstanding capacity issues.

In order to mitigate the impact of this on elective care, the HSC will continue with the current dynamic approach to delivering surgery. This includes:

Securing capacity in the independent sector;

Targeted in-house additionality;

Regional prioritisation of time critical surgery to ensure that all available capacity is utilised equitably for patients across Northern Ireland;

implementation of green pathways and sites with every effort made to keep elected care services entirely separate from any exposure to Covid-19; and

megaclinics to maximise patient throughput.

These initiatives are aligned with the actions described in the Elective Care Framework. The performance gains described in the Framework will only be fully realised if the necessary recurrent funding is made available.