'Implications for HSSD' after Alderney GP report
AN INDEPENDENT report into the handling of the case of Alderney GP Dr Rory Lyons will have 'far-reaching implications' for the Health and Social Services Department, according to a politician who has seen a draft copy.
Alderney Policy and Finance Committee chairman Robert McDowall, one of several politicians who has received a 42-page draft version of the report, said its recommendations would form a prerequisite to any future service level agreement for health provision between the department and Alderney.
The review has looked at the decision-making processes and actions that preceded a referral by HSSD of Dr Lyons to the General Medical Council and to Guernsey Police after the death of patients in Alderney.
No action was taken by either body, the police concluding there was a lack of evidence.
Dr Lyons still has not returned to general practice at the Eagle Medical Practice, although a locum travels from Guernsey every few months to see his patients.
The report, which was commissioned in August from the Good Governance Institute by the States of Alderney and the States of Guernsey, was first expected to be finished before Christmas. It was then delayed to this month and is now expected in early March.
Mr McDowall said the Policy Council needed to look at the revised report and the law officers would scrutinise it for any legal implications.
Concerns have been aired that the report will not be released publicly in its entirety.
Mr McDowall said that at Alderney's Policy and Finance meeting this week, members had been 'unanimous' in their view that all of the GGI's findings should be made public.
