Health & Social Care’s budget will increase by £6 to £8m each year if there is not a “fundamental review” of the entire healthcare model and how it is paid for, the Health President has foreshadowed.
Deputy Geroge Oswald committed to a far reaching review of the delivery and funding of health and care before the end of the political term in the States on Wednesday.
He said additional costs of up to £8m per year would be unavoidable without this wholesale review, as well as considering “who pays for what, how much should the user contribute, and the means for doing this”.
The review will include what could be delivered by primary, or private care, a review of the secondary, free at the point of use, care contract delivered by the Medical Specialist Group, medicines, community pharmacies and interaction with the third sector.
Deputy Oswald said this would inform recommendations to the States for a “bespoke programme suitable in scale and size for our island”.
Deputy Oswald noted that work is ongoing with the MSG to bring some off-island services back to local management and delivery.
“It is to the benefit of our service users that, where possible, major operations are carried out closer to home and family. The revision joint replacement scheme, a complex area of surgery which used to be handled in Exeter, is now managed locally,” he said.
The ballooning spend on agency staff to fill multiple vacancies was said to be reducing from £16m in 2023 to around £9m this year.
But Deputy Oswald said while this is pleasing “albeit some service areas remain hard to recruit to and continue to be major users of agency staff”.
Around 60% of HSC’s huge budget is spent on staffing costs.