To ask the Minister of Health, following confirmation that £500,000 has been allocated for the Craigavon Area Hospital redevelopment programme team, healthcare planning, and site master plan, to outline when the funding will be released to progress the planning phase of the redevelopment.

The Southern Health and Social Care Trust continues to develop the long-term plans for the site redevelopment programme at Craigavon Area Hospital (CAH). Due to the scale of the programme the project will be broken down into phases, and the Trust is currently refining the preferred phased redevelopment approach at CAH.

The substantial projected cost of the programme means that affordability will be a key issue, in the context of the challenging financial environment and the scale of demand for other capital investment projects in the Health and Social Care sector.

Within a briefing to the Health Committee in March 2025 the Department advised of the costs to progress projects in design and development, including the redevelopment of CAH. In light of the financial implications for future years it has not been possible to commit funding to some of the projects in the current financial year, including the redevelopment of CAH. The future of these projects will instead be considered as part of the development of the capital investment plan.

Following the announcement of the outcome of the UK wide Spending Review 2025 in June, the Department of Finance commissioned a Budget exercise that will determine the capital budgets for Northern Ireland Department’s for the years 2026-27 to 2029-30.

My ability to commit to funding capital projects, including the CAH redevelopment project, will depend on my Department’s capital allocation from the Budget process. The draft Budget outcome is not expected to be confirmed until later this year and will inform the development of the Department of Health capital investment plan which will set out the projects to be taken forward over the next ten years.