To ask the Minister of Health whether his priorities will focus on health transformation to stabilise a stretched workforce and provide a sustainable health service for all patients.

The HSC Reset Plan places a clear focus on delivering an operationally & financially sustainable health service for the people of Northern Ireland.

Reset recognises the HSC workforce as our greatest asset, and thus as a key enabler of reform. The plan commits to stabilising and optimising our workforce to support care across a range of settings. As work on rolling out our Neighbourhood Model advances, there will be a particular focus on developing the skills of health & social care professionals, to deliver more proactive, multidisciplinary and joined-up care closer to home.

Alongside this, implementation of the HSC Workforce Strategy continues. This strategy includes a focus on workforce planning, commissioning of pre and post-registration training, initiatives to improve retention, and continued action to reduce reliance on temporary staffing.

I am pleased that positive progress has been achieved with staff retention in the last number of years, with a reduction in the HSC leaving rate from 8.4% in 2022/23 to 6.3% in 2025/26. We have also seen encouraging progress in reducing agency and locum dependency across HSC Trusts, with medical and dental locum costs reducing by 9.7% (£13.7 million) and nursing and midwifery agency costs reducing by 10.7% (£17.2 million) during 2025/26 compared to the position in 2024/25.

We are also progressing Safe and Effective Staffing legislation, which will provide a consistent framework for workforce planning and help ensure the right staff, with the right skills, are available in the right place at the right time to support safe, high-quality and sustainable services.

Additionally, further work is underway to strengthen system-wide workforce arrangements through the establishment of a new System Workforce Management Group for HSC. This will support a whole system approach to our workforce agenda, with a particular focus on optimal workforce deployment, skill mix and productivity. A key aim is to ensure workforce decisions are better aligned with service reform and future demand, helping to support sustainable service delivery.