What do you get for your grant?
WHILE we are struggling to find the rationale to continue to pay a £12 grant from the public purse to the GP practices for every appointment with a doctor – learning along the way that a working party was established earlier this political term to resolve this issue and pursue greater value for money, which appeared just to fizzle out through a lack of interest – thoughts turn to what we get for our (taxpayer) money.
Maybe the real cost of seeing the doctor is indeed £82. A sum which, if it is paid in person by the individual paying £70, is unlikely to prove to be beyond their ability to pay.
But instead the three primary care practices between them now pick up what must be close to £5m. directly from the States for no apparent benefit to the taxpayer, no regulatory catch, no link to a service level agreement.
It could also be argued that proposals to bolster the long-term care insurance scheme, before the States shortly, could be heading the same way.
Those proposals for islanders to pay more are an effort to stabilise, possibly incentivise, the care home sector, but carry no guarantees, no tie-ins.
Yes the States care fund is clearly unsustainable, but there is a lot of faith being shown in the sector, with nothing included to stop care homes simply ensuring profitability, instead of investing back into the sector as the States might wish.