Northern Ireland’s government faces UK’s longest list of health woes

Healthcare is the largest public service in all UK nations1 and a totemic symbol of solidarity. Yet all four governments face deep concern over waiting times and healthcare staffing.23

None face a task quite as daunting as Northern Ireland’s newly formed government, now responsible for the health service with the longest waiting time in the UK and for a struggling social care sector that it manages much more directly than the other nations. The one ray of hope is that the underlying causes of these problems are at least partly understood—and the solutions partly known.

Waiting times are alarming even compared with elsewhere in the UK. In December 2023, patients in England waited a median of 15 weeks for planned treatment.4 In Northern Ireland the median wait for an outpatient consultation was 50 weeks,5 and for inpatient treatment 58 weeks.6 Counting these separately, unlike in England, means that these average waits of around a year will often be experienced one after the other. …