Doctors in Northern Ireland have called for the future sustainability of local health services to be made a priority.

The British Medical Association (BMA) NI has highlighted its concerns about the effect that required efficiency savings are having on the health service in the short term, and constraints on the health budget in future.

These were revealed in a briefing note issued to the Minister for Health, the Health Committee and Department of Finance.

Dr Paul Darragh, Chairman of the BMA's Northern Ireland Council said: "We are facing unprecedented financial constraints to our health service, and tough questions need to be asked about what the priorities should be for our public services, with the health service continuing to be the subject of close scrutiny.

"Frontline health services need to be supported and protected, and we urge politicians to work together to ensure that Northern Ireland’s health service is the best that it can be."

Key to delivering a world class health service within financial constraints is the need for a professionally led, patient centred service, the senior medic continued noting that mental health and older people's services are seen as a "soft" target for spending cuts.

The freezing of recruitment and cutting staff as the health service struggles to make multi-million pound savings would be wrong, he added.

But Stormont Health Minister Michael McGimpsey said £5.6m has been invested in community mental health services since 2008 but added that demand was growing at a much faster rate than funding.

In the last two years there has been an increase of over 20% in demand for services, yet funding has only increased by 0.5% in real terms, he has said.

He added that he was still determining where the cuts in his Department's budget would fall.

However, the BMA representative said: "Better workforce planning and investment in the health service instead of squandering money on expensive private providers would provide better care for patients."

Dr Darragh added: "Doctors are realistic about what the health service can provide, but we urge caution as to how trusts will achieve efficiency savings. The caution is not that the efficiency savings are to be made, but at what cost to future service provision."

(BMcC/GK)