2016 review, external<\/a> that was supposed to change the way Northern Ireland does healthcare.<\/p>\nHis proposition was practical but ambitious: that a system under relentless pressure could not simply treat more patients, run similar services in different hospitals and spend more money.<\/p>\n
The name Bengoa came to represent something that Northern Ireland’s health service desperately needed: the possibility of improvement and change.<\/p>\n
A shift in emphasis was needed, he said, towards prevention, integration and keeping people well in the community, which would require the support of GPs.<\/p>\n
But 10 years on, hospital waiting lists, access to GPs and the state of social care suggest the job is far from finished.<\/p>\n
While political parties say they continue to support the Bengoa ethos, with an election looming next year some actions suggest differently.<\/p>\n
The man himself is back in Northern Ireland for a fourth time. <\/p>\n
Speaking to BBC News NI he said there was no reason why Stormont politicians could not embrace transformational change to bring about a world-leading health service.<\/p>\n
“They have to agree there is something that is above their political parties and that is what happened 10 years ago,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The most important green shoot 10 years ago was the political parties getting together and agreeing and putting a budget in place to support the plan.<\/p>\n
“It would be great to see that consensus happening again with a budget that runs over three years to allow for long-term planning.”<\/p>\n
Bengoa also said the role of GPs was critical if the new neighbourhood health model – to deliver more care in the community – is to be successful.<\/p>\n
He said GPs were key to prevention and reducing pressure on hospitals and that their role in that must be recognised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A decade ago Northern Ireland’s health service was likened to a “burning platform” – where there was such…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-794340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}