Further coronavirus restrictions a possibility, Health minister Robin Swann warns as we face ‘the most difficult winter ever experienced’

Speaking this morning on the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster he said Mr Swann said he and his executive colleagues would do “all that we can” to avoid another lockdown.

Last month Mr Swann said Northern Ireland was “facing into the most difficult winter ever experienced”.

Mr Swann this morning also encouraged people to keep coming forward for vaccination.

“I hope that we don’t get into a position where we have to go down the lengths of a further lockdown,” he said.

“Will we have to look at further restrictions? Possibly. But I’ll always take that advice from the chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser in regards to where we are.”

Mr Swann added that a lockdown would be a “detrimental step that I wouldn’t want to recommend”.

“We must realise we are seeing levels of pressure that we have never seen before,” he said.

“That’s why we’re pushing the vaccination programme as much as we can to get people to still come forward to get their first vaccine and their second vaccine and their booster programme.”

Mr Swann said the shortage of front-line staff was a result of years of underinvestment in Northern Ireland’s health service.

“As we see that increase in pressure across all our service areas and all our trust areas we are working to mitigate them as best we can,” he said.

“But we have limited staff to be able to do that, so it really is about working in partnership with the general public.”

He added: “I don’t have enough nurses, I don’t have enough doctors, I’m on record saying that.

“Unfortunately it’s not about producing staff out of nowhere, we can’t do that.

“So it’s about supporting the current staff that we have, doing the job they are doing.”

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