10 Key Facts
Top 10 Key Facts about the Health and Social Care Northern Ireland
1. About HSC NI
6 Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts provide integrated health and social care services across Northern Ireland:
- Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (Belfast)
- South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust (Down, Newtownards and Lisburn)
- Northern Health and Social Care Trust (Coleraine, Larne, Antrim, Ballymena and Cookstown)
- Southern Health and Social Care Trust (Dungannon, Armagh, Craigavon, Banbridge and Newry)
- Western Health and Social Care Trust (Londonderry, Limavady, Strabane, Omagh and Fermanagh)
- Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Trust (covering all of Northern Ireland)
Each HSC Trust has a statutory obligation to put and keep in place arrangements for monitoring and improving the quality of health and social care which it provides to individuals and the environment in which it provides them (Health and Personal Social Services (Quality, Improvement and Regulation) (NI) Order 2003).
2. Transforming Your Care (TYC)
Transforming Your Care (TYC) is a current programme tasked with making Health and Social Care (HSC) more modern and improving health and social care services for everyone in Northern Ireland (population 1.8 million).
3. HSCNI Staff Profile
Approximately, 66,000 people are directly employed across local health and social organisations, the vast majority (80%) are women. All HSCNI organisations offer flexible working opportunities.
- The largest Occupational Family was Nursing and Midwifery, with 18,633 employed. This represented 34% of the workforce.
- The Medical and Dental workforce, including trainee GPs, stood at 4,344. 44% (1,569 WTE) are Consultants.
- Of all staff, 38% (20,719 WTE) were employed at Agenda for Change Bands 1-4.
(Data taken from the Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Workforce Census March 2015)
4. Accident and Emergency Activity
In 2013/14 there were 610,000 inpatient/day case admissions to hospital and 727,000 attendances at Accident & Emergency.
5. General Practitioner Levels
There are approximately 350 General Practitioner Practices within the province.
6. NI Population in terms of Health
According to the Health Survey Northern Ireland, 2013-14, 73% of adults in Northern Ireland described their health as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. There was no difference between males and females view on their general health although, younger males tended to rate their health more positively than younger females with over half of males aged 16-24 (54%) rating their health as ‘very good’ compared with two-fifths of females (40%).
7. Patient Health Aspirations
73% felt there was something they could do to make their life healthier, as well as eating more healthily (49%) and being more physically active (54%) respondents felt reducing the amount of stress in their lives (30%) and controlling their weight (34%) would make their lives healthier.
8. Centres of Excellence
Northern Ireland has recently been awarded a role as one of five UK regional centres of excellence for the delivery of precision medicine.
9. Links with Universities & Colleges
There are strong links and relationships with the HSCNI and the local Universities and colleges (Queen’s University, Belfast and University of Ulster).
10. Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Workforce Vacancies 2015
At 31st March 2015, there were 2,235 (2,033.7 whole-time equivalent [WTE] posts being actively recruited to in Health and Social Care organisations, for a WTE vacancy rate of 3.6%.
- At the same date, there were 907 (830.6 WTE) posts which HSC organisations had been actively attempting to fill for at least three months, for a long-term WTE vacancy rate of 1.5%.
- The highest count of vacancies was in the Nursing and Midwifery Occupational Family, with 784 (735.9 WTE). This equated to a 3.8% WTE current vacancy rate.