HSSD hands initiative to doctors
PERVERSE, dysfunctional and very expensive – if the PEH efficiency report published this week was critical, its authors yesterday took condemnation of HSSD's unique system to a new level.
PERVERSE, dysfunctional and very expensive – if the PEH efficiency report published this week was critical, its authors yesterday took condemnation of HSSD's unique system to a new level.
Why, they ask, does the island want to employ 45 very expensive consultants when an equivalent NHS hospital would use just 32 backed by non-specialists at half the pay rate?
And if consultants are preferred why are there so many of them when they should be more productive than less qualified doctors?
It is a persuasive argument. If the same standard of care can be achieved for less in the UK then either the island should save some money and get the same service or demand even better healthcare for its cash.
HSSD's objections to the report revolve around two key points. The island is not big enough to employ junior doctors and the data provided to the independent reviewers was deficient.
Yet HSSD does employ non-consultant doctors at the PEH and many of the gaps in data were either because the information is just not collated in Guernsey or because the authors were denied access to it by MSG.
HSSD's minister says that it would be wrong to blindly accept all of a preliminary report's conclusions.
Agreed, but was the correct response to instantly rubbish the report and claim that 'it is difficult to rely on any of its conclusions with any great confidence'?
Would it not have been wiser to use the report as a springboard for a more in-depth investigation with access to as much good data as HSSD can muster? And get as much co-operation as possible from the specialists and GPs.
Such a hostile approach smacks of a closed-minded defence of the status quo which the island can ill afford. By seeking to undermine the report so conclusively there can be few people who believe its central conclusions will ever be acted upon.
In the coming contract talks with the consultants and GPs that damages HSSD's negotiating position. It would be far better if the doctors believed that HSSD was prepared to consider changing the whole system. Now no one does.
