Health and Social Care (HSC; Irish: Sláinte agus Cúram Sóisialta) is the publicly funded healthcare system in Northern Ireland.

The act also established five local commissioning groups which work in parallel with the health and social care trusts.

[4][5] The five professional groups are: Trusts are the statutory bodies responsible for the management of staff, health and social care services on the ground and have control their own budgets.

[12] In 2016 Michelle O'Neill produced a plan to install a named district nurse, health visitor and social worker in every practice.

[13] The British Medical Association voted to start collecting undated resignations from Northern Ireland GPs in January 2017 in protest against the underfunding of general practice in the province.

[14] In May 2018 a £100 million Health and Social Care transformation funding package was announced, including £5 million for Multi Disciplinary Teams in two areas initially, each of about 100,000 people, which will involve the establishment of practice-based physiotherapists, mental health specialists and social workers working alongside doctors and nurses.

[15] The first community hub for primary care in the province was to be established in Cookstown in 2018, backed by four local GP practices and the health board.

It was to incorporate scanning facilities, a minor surgery suite, a pharmacy, out-of-hours consultations and community healthcare partnerships, with the possibility of developing supported living accommodation for older people.

[19] On 29 September 2008, Michael McGimpsey, the then Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, announced that Prescription charges were to be phased out by April 2010, being first reduced to £3.00 in January 2009.

In September 2015 the Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Board admitted that waiting lists for surgery had grown and that they did not have the money to pay either NHS providers or the private sector to bring them down.

[22] In 2015, the NHS waiting list target in Northern Ireland was 52 weeks, not 18 as in England and 10% of healthcare provided in the region was paid for privately.

[23] A report by the Nuffield Trust in 2017 showed that though spending per head in the province at £2,200 a year was much the same as the rest of the UK the performance of the system was much worse.

[25] The Northern Ireland Audit Office reported in December 2018 that "the health and social care system, as currently configured, is simply unable to cope with the demands being placed on it."

[30] In May 2022 waiting times for outpatient appointments, hospital procedures, emergency care, GPs and community health services reached record levels.

Tom Black chair of the British Medical Association Northern Ireland said the crisis boiled down to "workload and workforce" issues.