The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MLA Robbie Butler will be Northern Ireland’s next minister for health, The Irish Times understands. Butler’s appointment has not been officially confirmed by the UUP, but he was publicly congratulated in statements issued by the DUP and Sinn Féin on Thursday. A former UUP deputy leader, Butler replaces Mike Nesbitt, who resigned on Tuesday amid a row with party leader Jon Burrows over plans by the Northern Trust to close emergency general surgery services at the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine.Following a review and a public consultation last year, the Trust recommended that such services should only be provided at one of its sites, Antrim Area Hospital, a move that requires final approval from the minister. Burrows last week 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”. He 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 resolved,” Nesbitt wrote, adding that he offered his resignation “with no little regret”. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Burrows thanked Nesbitt for his service and said he was “disappointed that he has resigned, but I now need to look to the future”.Committing to announcing Nesbitt’s successor on Thursday, Burrows said he would “make a weighed-up decision swiftly, but not hastily, in the best interest of people in Northern Ireland”.A former butcher who spent 16 years in the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, Butler is the chair of the Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee at Stormont. The chair of the Stormont Health Committee, Sinn Féin MLA Philip McGuigan, said that “despite the disruption surrounding the sudden departure of Mike Nesbitt, I wish Robbie Butler well in his new role and I intend to work constructively with him in the interests of our health service, our health staff and patients”.He said Butler was taking office “at a critical time for health and social care” and the “immediate priority must be to provide stability and ensure that disruption is minimised. “It is essential that the new Health Minister is able to make decisions based on expert advice and patient outcomes rather than the narrow electoral and constituency interests of his party leader,” he said. DUP MLA Diane Dodds congratulated Butler, saying he “takes office with an enormous in-tray and there can be no time for a lengthy settling-in period.“Robbie Butler must also make clear whether he intends simply to continue the approach pursued by Mike Nesbitt or whether there will now be a reset.“Patients will judge this Minister not by announcements or strategies, but by whether access to healthcare actually improves,” she said.