At the beginning of the year many constituents contacted me concerned that their planned operations were being repeatedly cancelled. Many had been waiting a considerable period of time for joint replacements such as hips and knees. They described being in considerable pain, immobile and unable to leave the house.

I have now written to the Department of Health on a number of occasions asking for an explanation as to why so many elective procedures had to be cancelled and when they would be rescheduled. As you can see from the letter above, the last letter I sent was June 11 and the Minister finally wrote his response to me on August 13.

In the letter, the Government says hospital managers are already planning in preparation for next winter. I very much hope therefore that we don’t see another repeat of last year’s crisis and that managers are being given the funding they need to provide a seamless service during a time of year when we know there will be greater demand.