Health Minister praises HSC staff commitment as encompass data shows scale of daily patient care

Date published: 18 February 2026

Since May 2025, encompass has transformed how Health and Social Care (HSC) services have been delivered in Northern Ireland. encompass is a clinically and operationally-led integrated care record system and allows for a single digital care record for every citizen in Northern Ireland.

One of the main benefits is the availability of high-quality data. encompass has been able to show just how much HSC provides to the public on a day-to-day basis. For example, it has shown that on one day in January, HSC delivered over 43,000 acute hospital and community appointments, plus 70,000 Domiciliary Care calls, and 500 operations and invasive procedures.

These figures are part of a total of nearly 120,000 encounters with the public through HSC Trusts, Domiciliary Care calls and District Nursing visits.

The Health Minister Mike Nesbitt said: 

“Given the current funding pressures on the Health budget, being as effective and efficient with the resources we do have is vital to optimise the whole of Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care system. 

“Having high quality and up-to-date data helps us to make informed decisions when looking at the future of how we fund and resource HSC services. encompass provides us with the data to do this.”

Speaking about the 120,000 encounters in one day last month, the Minister praised HSC staff. He said: 

“The scale of activity highlights how hard our staff work right across the Health and Social Care system, demonstrating their commitment to providing a high quality and patient centered service.” 

encompass has also improved patient safety by reducing medication errors and delivering faster results to patients. Efficiency across the system has increased with less duplication and freeing up of staff time from administration duties. 

The public are more in control of their own health data through the My Care portal (https://mycare.encompass.hscni.net/mychart/Authentication/Login), where they can view medication, appointments and some test results online. So far, almost 300,000 people have signed up to My Care, which is around 15% of the adult population in NI. This digital tool gives service users instant access to appointment information via the click of a button, helping to reduce the risk of missed appointments, saving the HSC money, whilst also empowering patients in their care.

The Minister added: 

“It has been nearly ten months since Northern Ireland were put at the forefront of health service delivery, when all five geographic Trusts went live on encompass. Having a single digital care record has transformed HSC, for both patients being able to access their health record in one place, and for staff in how we deliver care, transforming patient experience.”

The Department of Health’s Chief Digital Information Officer, Paul Rice added: 

“encompass has changed how we deliver care by making it safer, more connected and more patient-focused by ensuring that the right information is available at the right time.  Access to high quality actionable data is vital to planning services that truly meet people’s needs and will help us to work more effectively and efficiently.”