Immediate and decisive action is needed to address health waiting lists here, Alliance Health spokesperson Paula Bradshaw has said.

The South Belfast MLA was speaking after the publication of the latest waiting times by the Department of Health. She said tough decisions would need to be taken to improve the statistics.

“There can be no doubt we need immediate and decisive action to address the scandalous waiting lists right across our health service,” said Ms Bradshaw.

“This will require additional workforce, additional training to skill-up existing staff, additional funding, and ultimately the urgent delivery of the health transformation agenda.

“The rest of this Assembly mandate and beyond will require tough decisions to be taken regarding the prioritisation of the transformation process by the Department of Health, and importantly, it will take political leadership to ensure when those tough decisions are taken, we don’t see parochialism.

“The health and wellbeing of our people is deteriorating and we cannot allow localism populism to get in the way of fixing the issues.”