Health Minister Mike Nesbitt has announced a series of initiatives to protect key health and social care services during another highly challenging winter period.
The measures are detailed in a 2024/25 Winter Preparedness Plan published today.
They will not eliminate winter pressures on the HSC system but will help to alleviate their impact.
The Health Minister said:
“There is no doubt that the Health and Social Care system is again facing a very difficult winter period. While there are ongoing pressures across the system all year, it is clear that more people become sicker, for longer, over the winter months. This is particularly true of our older population.
“The planning process for winter gets underway in springtime, to ensure that we can mitigate, as far as possible, the additional pressures that we know we will face. For this winter, this includes measures to keep the population well in the community, including the use of community pharmacy, and measures to protect primary care, hospital care and social care.
“We can all play our part again this winter to look after ourselves and support the health service. This can include getting vaccinated if you are eligible, taking sensible steps to stay well, and co-operating with hospital discharge processes if you or a family member are well enough to leave hospital.
“Timely hospital discharges are essential to ensure patient flow through hospitals, freeing up capacity in Emergency Departments and the Ambulance Service.”
The initiatives across primary, secondary and social care detailed in the Winter Preparedness Plan include:
A Pharmacy First Sore Throat Service available from pharmacies across NI. Starting from December 1 for everyone aged five and over, this service will offer advice, clinical assessment and treatment for sore throats, without having to wait for a GP appointment.
This service was available from 43 pharmacies on a pilot basis last winter, and was effective in to helping to free up GP time and relieve pressures on other urgent care services.
Vaccination programmes for COVID-19 and influenza are operational again this year. In addition, a Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine is now available for older adults and pregnant women from 28 weeks gestation. If all those people who are eligible take up the vaccine opportunities open to them, it will not only help keep these individuals safe, it will also help to reduce pressures on services.
An extra £3.4million is being made available to help GP services meet additional winter demand. A further £4.6m has also been provided to assist the delivery of proactive support and care to those in nursing and residential care homes.
Phone First services are available in all geographic Trusts for urgent and unscheduled care. This can support timely management of less serious cases away from busy Emergency Departments and facilitate booking appointments into urgent care services.
An additional investment of £5million has been allocated to the Health Trusts for 2024/2025 to enhance independent sector provision of care packages for the over-65 population.
To make best use of available home care capacity, Trusts have also been provided with £697,000 in recurrent funding to establish early review teams. This can release much-needed capacity by identifying if needs have reduced in the period since returning home.
The Health Minister concluded with a direct appeal to the public:
“Please do everything in your power to support our great health and social care staff this winter.
“Please be patient and respectful as they deal with the upsurge in demand for care and strive to treat the sickest quickest.”