To ask the Minister of Health to detail any mechanisms currently in place to allow patients to receive treatment in a different Health and Social Care Trust area if waiting times are significantly shortened.

A collaborative approach to waiting list management is well developed across all Health and Social Care Trusts. The Elective Care Management Team meets regularly and provides a forum for Trusts to highlight pressures that may require assistance, alongside discussion of opportunities to equalise waiting times across Trusts. All Trusts are represented at a senior level.

This regional approach has been further embedded by the development of the regional day procedure centres (DPCs), which provide capacity to treat patients who require low acuity procedures across a range of specialties. Patients travel from all Trusts to access this capacity. This supports the efficient use of core Trust capacity, which often focuses on more complex procedures. The DPCs have supported reductions in the number of patients waiting and the associated waiting times for procedures such as endoscopy. In addition, a number of specialist centres have been created for Urological conditions which can be accessed by patients from all Trusts, with the complex stone service in Craigavon Area Hospital and the bladder outflow service at the Ulster Hospital examples of this.

This collaborative approach continues to be strengthened through service and technical developments. The implementation of the encompass programme has provided the opportunity to develop single regional waiting lists that will ensure patients are assessed in chronological order on a regional basis, rather than within their local Trust area. This will allow patients to be assessed in the next available clinic slot, which may be in any Trust, mitigating Trust specific service pressures that can impact waiting times. Work is ongoing to implement this process for women referred for urgent suspected breast cancer assessment, with plans in place to develop this in other specialties such as dermatology.