To ask the Minister of Health (i) to detail the current staffing levels of Neighbourhood District Nursing in North Down; and (ii) for his assessment of the current staffing levels.

The South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust advise that they have funding to support one Neighbourhood District Nursing (NDN) team to operate within North Down. The remaining 8 District Nursing teams in North Down have not implemented the NDN model at this time and therefore staffing levels across North Down do not fully reflect the NDN Model.

The current staffing levels within the one NDN team in North Down is 6.0 whole time equivalent (WTE) staff within the service. This is reflective of additional funding through DoH Delivering Care investment that supported the recruitment of 2 additional staff to support the 24/7 model.

I am pleased to note that due to my Department’s Delivering Care investment there has been a significant increase across the entire District Nursing workforce across all Trusts in terms of staff in post when compared to March 2023. Vacancy levels have reduced from 277.65 WTE in March 2023 to 103.3 WTE in August 2024, a reduction of 174.30 WTE (62.8%).

The regional average District Nursing staff in post per 10,000 population was 6.44 in 2024 compared with 5.42 in 2023, which reflects those reduced vacancy levels.

My Department continues to work with Trusts to identify appropriate means by which this improvement can be continued.