Details of winter preparedness plan across Northern Ireland's health and social care

The Department of Health has announced a series of initiatives to protect key health and social care services in Northern Ireland during another highly challenging winter period.

The measures are detailed in a 2024/25 Winter Preparedness Plan published today as officials warned that they will not eliminate winter pressures on the Health and Social Care (HSC) system but will help to alleviate their impact.

Announcing the series of measures, Stormont's Health Minister Mike Nesbitt said there's no doubt that the HSC system is again facing a very difficult winter period.

READ MORE: NI heart and cancer patients face treatment delays amid radioisotopes shortage

READ MORE: Northern Ireland's maternity services review calls for urgent overhaul

Mr Nesbitt added: “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.”

Mr Nesbitt also issued 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.”

Dr Alan Stout, BMA Northern Ireland council chair, welcomed the Department of Health's acknowledgment that winter pressures are really year long pressures, adding: “There will be no let up on the need for hospital beds or GP appointments, adding it will be a struggle to keep up with elective work alongside emergencies and acute need.

“Investment in health is always welcome, but I think we all know that this level of funding will only begin to address the huge gaps in service that patients are facing. What we really need are medium and long term plans to significantly reignite the planning and funding of our services.

“We would encourage patients to use the additional services on offer from pharmacies and phone first, to get vaccinated if they are eligible and to work with hospitals in making sure relatives are discharged in a timely way to enable optimal patient flow through the system.”

READ MORE: Belfast medical student championing allergy awareness after six near death experiences

READ MORE: Illegal vape sales to underage teens in Northern Ireland double over last year, figures show

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 1st 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 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.

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.