Intensive care needed by minister
AN EXTENDED question time in the States yesterday saw the Health minister under some pressure over the safety and costs issues that have been raised regarding accident and emergency cover at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital.
AN EXTENDED question time in the States yesterday saw the Health minister under some pressure over the safety and costs issues that have been raised regarding accident and emergency cover at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital.
Those who were there observing did not come away with a sense that all is under control.
But step away for a moment from A&E, serious and alarming though that haemorrhage of public funds is, and there are some rather more disturbing symptoms presenting.
Ministers at bay – and let's be blunt here – are fun. It's theatre. It is parliamentary scrutiny in full flow and little else gets a backbencher's pulse racing more than holding a member of the Policy Council elite to account.
Yet who was the HSSD minister defending yesterday? Not PCCL, the company behind A&E care. The level of profit-taking exhibited by it and the GPs behind it appear indefensible and there are also doubts that the service being provided is even within contract.
No, if anything, he was trying to defend his own department, which is why there is cause for concern. HSSD has a huge remit, a massive budget and in excess of 1,600 staff, according to its operational plan. That same document sets out what it has to do and the top two priorities are delivering high quality, safe and effective services and hitting budget.
Yet HSSD's money problems are well documented and not only has it to renegotiate two key contracts – that with the consultants at MSG and the GPs at A&E – it has also to implement its massive 2020 Vision to transform healthcare locally.
At the same time, it continues to cancel operations, the one thing the new members of the political board were elected to prevent, since taking a shortage of cash out on patients cost the last minister his job.
In short, HSSD looks poorly. Not a basket case but, without treatment, heading for intensive care.
If the prognosis is correct, that the department's board and senior team are currently under-resourced, then for Frossard House this is a bit like the banks.
Health is too big to fail.
