Survey seeks to find out extent of health poverty
THE extent to which islanders will not go to the doctor because of the cost could be revealed by a survey being carried out by an independent body which advises Health & Social Care.
‘I’ve heard plenty of anecdotal evidence of people being hesitant to visit their surgery because they are unable to pay,’ said David Inglis, a founder member of CareWatch, which advises HSC on the needs of service users .
‘But we need to gather information and evidence about how widespread this problem is, so that we can pass that on to HSC and effect change.’
Mr Inglis, who is the chairman of Age Concern in Guernsey,was invited by HSC to be involved in CareWatch to provide feedback on behalf of older members of society and he has been heavily involved in the instigation and drafting of its primary care survey, which remains open until Friday 25 March.
The aim of the survey is to inform an ongoing review by the States of the funding and model of primary care, which covers GP surgeries, out-of-hours GPs, pharmacies, physiotherapists and the emergency departments at the Princess Elizabeth and Mignot Memorial hospitals.
This review began last year and the final proposals, informed by the current survey, will be presented to States members in the autumn.
Mr Inglis said the CareWatch panel had thought long and hard about which questions to include in the survey, as it was an essential first step towards solving the problems faced by some islanders with unmet medical needs.
The questions have been approved by HSC and by all the medical practices, he said.
There was a higher-than-anticipated degree of engagement with the survey when it was launched on Wednesday, with the total expected number of respondents being achieved within the first 24 hours.
HSC president Deputy Al Brouard thanked CareWatch for carrying out the survey and said the information gathered would be ‘one consideration in shaping our final recommendations’.
