The health service is a massive institution, with a crucial role to play for all citizens, from the youngest to the oldest, and across its many levels it will always require a range of capable and experienced administrators.
No one would dispute that they merit salaries which reflect the importance of their posts, and the vital nature of the decisions they face on a daily basis, but there will still be concern about the sharp increase in payment to some of the most senior figures.
As The Irish News reported earlier this week, 14 members of the Stormont department of health’s Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG) now earn packages totalling £2.1 million, a rise of more than 50% compared to three years ago.
The SPPG is a significant body, which oversees the delivery of all health and social care services and is responsible for “planning, improving and overseeing the delivery of effective, high quality, safe health and social care services within available resources”.
It replaced the Health and Social Care Board in 2022 after a review of how health services were commissioned found weaknesses, including “complex and bureaucratic structures and a lack of clarity of accountability and decision making”.
While the SPPG deserves to be given every opportunity to effectively address all these major issues, the way in which the wages of its members have risen so sharply within such a short period of time sends out entirely the wrong message.
Even before the enormous wider pressures within the health service are taken into consideration, there are few categories within either the public or the private sector where anyone is earning half as much again as they did three years ago.
It will be noted that, during the same period, the number of individuals waiting on a new outpatient assessment has grown to more than 510,000, having been at 428,000 in 2023.
The overall statistics were confirmed by health minister Mike Nesbitt in response to an Assembly Question by Stormont health committee member and DUP MLA Diane Dodds.
Ms Dodds, speaking to this paper, acknowledged that progress had been made over some of the longest waiting lists, but she was fully entitled to declare that every pound spent at the top of our health service must demonstrate clear value for patients.
It cannot be acceptable that more than half a million people, representing well over a quarter of the population of the region, are presently in a queue for first outpatient appointments.
In order to justify the large and rapidly expanding cost to taxpayers of the SPPG, it must prove that it is capable of delivering a much improved performance in the short term.
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