Northern Ireland’s next health minister will be announced on Thursday, after the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader Jon Burrows said he would decide on the appointment “overnight”. He pledged “an unrivalled era of transparency and communication, so that whenever decisions are proposed ... ministers, officials, clinicians are in town halls explaining the evidence. “Those are the things that we need to change, and the changes that are going to come,” he said. UUP MLA Mike Nesbitt quit as minister on Tuesday night amid a row with Burrows over plans by the Northern Trust to close emergency general surgery services at the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine. The Assembly’s Health Committee is to hold an emergency meeting on Thursday following Nesbitt’s resignation. Speaking to reporters at Stormont on Wednesday afternoon, Burrows declined to rule himself out as a candidate and said he would “make that decision overnight, I will make a weighed-up decision swiftly, but not hastily, in the best interest of people in Northern Ireland.”In May 2025, the Trust recommended, following a review and public consultation, that such services should only be provided on one of its sites, Antrim Area Hospital, a move which requires final approval from the minister. Mike Nesbitt. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA Wire Last week, Burrows told a public meeting in Coleraine he did not support the change. “I do not agree with it, and I will never agree with it,” he said.In his resignation letter, which he subsequently published on social media, Nesbitt said he was “not the sort of minister who is happy to discover the leader’s view of issues under my purview by having to monitor the media” and accused Burrows of introducing a fresh “red line” in health. “Yesterday, I offered you a way to manage the situation. As I have not received a timely response, and given the shock waves you have created in the HSC (Health and Social Care) system, this matter needs [to be] resolved,” Nesbitt wrote, adding that he offered his resignation “with no little regret”. Burrows thanked Nesbitt, saying he had “served with compassion and dignity” and he was “disappointed that he has resigned, but I now need to look to the future”.He said he was “not opposed to reform of the health service, in fact I want to see more transformation” but added that “things have to change in how we do these transformations”.On Wednesday, tributes were paid to Nesbitt from right across the political spectrum and from within the health and social care sector, where he was hailed for showing political leadership and listening to clinical experts, and for his efforts to reform health provision in the North, which they emphasised must continue. [ Why did the UUP’s Mike Nesbitt resign as Northern Ireland’s minister for health?Opens in new window ]