Healthcare funding unsustainable, president says

All options need to be looked at for the future funding of healthcare in Guernsey, the new President of the Health and Social Care Committee (HSC) has said.

Deputy George Oswald said the current system was "unsustainable" without a funding increase.

The president said at the start of July the HSC had "no political oversight" of the first phase of the hospital modernisation project.

The comments came after the BBC revealed the opening of a new critical care unit at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital had been delayed again.

Oswald said finding an answer to funding was his number one priority.

He said: "What we are providing for at the moment is unsustainable.

"If things remain as they are by, I think it's the year 2040, our excess health costs in addition to what we're paying at the moment will be an extra £40m a year.

"We need to have a clear and conscious and fresh look at it."

He said the sustainable health care delivery model was going to require a "significant amount of work" in the next term.

"There is so much involved but I'm grateful for the support of my committee of whom we have a very able body of people who are going to, I hope, at the end of this term produce a model which actually takes us into the future that we can afford and live with.

"I'm supportive of any need we have to raise extra revenue - it is urgent that we do this otherwise we will be in trouble."

Besides funding and organisation, the new president wants HSC to be focused on improving the physical health of islanders.

He said: "We need to carry on working on the current preventive measures we have in terms of alcohol consumption and tobacco usage, but most of the hard work and that has already been done.

"The next real main preventable health care issue that we can tackle is the obesity crisis - we've got an application in for funding to start a tier three obesity service which I hope will be successful."

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