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Islanders who require regular GP visits due to specific health problems could pay less for appointments in future, the Social Security Minister has revealed.
Deputy Lyndsay Feltham revealed her plans for further subsidies when answering questions in the States Assembly this week.
She spoke about the latest reduction of £10 for all face-to-face appointments, surgery consultations and home visits, which came into force last month.
This meant the overall subsidy for visits is now £50.28, which Deputy Feltham said encouraged islanders to seek early intervention for health issues.
In April, almost 10,000 islanders saw their fees reduced as part of the Health Access Scheme, and children now also receive free GP appointments.
Pictured: Social Security Minister Lyndsay Feltham.
The Government is working on a commitment to provide free appointments to all full-time students for the start of the next academic year in September.
On whether there would be more money off appointments, Deputy Feltham said: "I would like to undertake further work to look at how we may provide further subsidies to people who may, due to specific health problems, be required to visit the GP more often than others, and may have more significant reasons to visit GPs."
She added that the work was "yet to be undertaken".
The latest £10 reduction came at a cost of £3.8 million to the Health Insurance Fund, and Deputy Feltham confirmed she did not intend to increase contributions toward that fund to prop up further subsidies.
She said: "Ensuring that people can get timely access to GPs is a really important part of our health system to prevent further expenditure further down the line.
"I will need to ensure that any further subsidies will look after Health Insurance Fund and don't have an overall impact on that."
Other Members who joined the discussion expressed concern that some local practices were upping their fees ahead of the announcement of the reduction, cancelling out any public money put toward the cost.
In response, Deputy Feltham said she was "not aware" of any such situation but encouraged Members to report them to her privately.
Deputy Hilary Jeune asked whether the Minister would consider introducing a "fairer overall pricing system to visit a GP across the island", noting the discrepancies in charges from one practice to another.
Deputy Feltham replied: “Taking such steps across overall GP fees would be a significant change to current policy."
Cost of GP appointments to drop by £10 next week
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