Editorial: Professor Bengoa is back in Northern Ireland because MLAs have failed the health service

​On his return to Northern Ireland yesterday, Professor Raphael Bengoa said that “the leadership is there” when it comes to health reform in Northern Ireland.

​But is it?

Professor Bengoa is an international health expert and it is the better part of a decade since his report on the need for reform of NHS provision in the province.

The Spanish doctor adopted a diplomatic tone when he addressed a conference at the La Mon hotel in Belfast yesterday, saying that reform could begin slowly. “The leadership is there, there is a sense of direction and why not then take this moment to develop this for more rapid change,” he added.

That is a very generous assessment of Stormont politicians, who have shown no leadership at all when it comes to health reform. On the contrary, they have ignored expert report after expert report, the first of which was almost a quarter of a century ago. That evaluation was led by the late, hugely respected Dr Maurice Hayes.

All these expert reviews have reached the same conclusion: that NI has too many hospitals, which leads to less good outcomes. MLAs won’t implement it because they are afraid to be seen to close units. Instead, unionists join nationalists in implying that a generous UK Treasury is to blame. But it is the delay in implementing unanimous expert advice that is at the heart of our waiting list problems. Dr Bengoa is saying that if reform continues to be spurned, health could eat up the entire public service budget.

There was a glimmer of hope yesterday: the leaders of all Stormont’s main political parties were present for Prof Bengoa. They know what has to be done. Out of respect for Dr Bengoa, the late Maurice Hayes, and other experts, but above all out of concern for patients, which one day means us all, they need now to do it.