Hugh Cormican is a local success story.

Brought up on the Glen Road, educated in Newry, he returned to the big smoke to study at Queen's and then set up Andor Technologies.

Now a public company, Andor was one of the first companies into the new business park on the former Mackie's site off the Springfield Road. That investment served to reflect the economic changes flowing from the peace process.

(At least, that it, until its new English owners decided to downsize the entire peace line operation - but we'll leave the story about how outside ownership involves inevitable disconnect from the local community for another day).

After his Andor adventure, Hugh got back up on the saddle and founded another company with a healthcare angle: Cirdan.

Based on the Lagan Towpath in the old Coca Cola factory at Lambeg, Cirdan produces software and hardware which is used by clinicians around the world to better detect nasty things which are often hard to detect on scans and X-rays. 

I bumped into Hugh last month at a business roundtable being held as part of the Belfast International Homecoming where I learnt that he was gearing up for a trip Down Under to meet existing Cirdan customers and to pitch to potential new customers.

I was surprised to hear that while Cirdan has customers across the water in GB, in the US and in Australia, its products are not deployed by the local Health and Social Care service, the NHS to me and you. 

That's an odd one for sure. A local business which has just won circa £5m in investment from the New York Retirees’ Fund can’t win any business from our own health service.

In the US, there is a Small Business Innovation Fund which mandates Federal agencies to allocate 3.2 per cent of their procurement spend to US businesses. Surely this is an initiative that could be replicated here? (I am presuming of course that President Trump hasn't blown up this Fund in his assault on public services but, either way, it serves as a righteous model for our discussion).

A similar fund here, allocating even a tiny fraction of our £8.5bn health budget to services procured from local start-ups, would give a real fillip to entrepreneurs in the healthcare space. 

I have punched a hole in the ozone layer, travelling to Albany, New York to encourage New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, to invest in our start-ups and early-stage companies.

And he has not been found wanting, committing $111m (£83m) to local start-up and early-stage companies. I wonder how he feels when he learns that while New York's 1.2m public sector pensioners have put their trust in Cirdan, the local health service doesn't share his enthusiasm for it has yet to buy a product from Cirdan. A dead-to-rights case of the government telling foreign investors, "do as I say, not as I do". 

There's a job of work here for the Health Minister, Mike Nesbitt, but also for his colleagues, Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald and Finance Minister John O'Dowd. Perhaps by the time Hugh returns from Oz, this talented troika will have come up a solution to this embarrassing situation.

For our healthcare start-ups that would be just what the doctor ordered.