Public Accounts Committee launches Governance of Health and Social Care Review
24 April 2023
Today, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) launched a review examining Governance arrangements in Health and Social Care.
The review has been set up to follow up on earlier Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) recommendations and the progress that has been made as to their implementation. The recommendations on governance within the Department for Health and Community Services (HCS) from the C&AG focused on looking at Clinical Governance arrangements within secondary care. To address these recommendations, an action plan was presented to the States by the Minister for Health and Social Services. The plan included changes to governance within HCS such as the creation of a 'turn around' team to improve HCS operations and a board of governance to provide oversight and leadership to the department.
The PAC's Review has been launched to assess the effectiveness and value for money brought by these changes and to examine the current governance arrangements within health and social care in Jersey as a whole. More specifically, the key aims of the review are:
To assess how the current governance arrangements within health and social care provide assurance as to the quality of care and value for money of the health and social care system in Jersey.
To examine whether the board of governance and action plan will effectively contribute to good governance and accountability, quality of service and value for money in HCS.
To follow up on open Comptroller and Auditor General recommendations relating to health and social care.
To assess the effectiveness of financial managements within HCS given the department's 2022 overspend and the Minister for Treasury and Resources' request for a turnaround plan.
The turnaround team and proposed board of governance is focussed specifically on HCS and, as such, the review will include looking at the whole system, which encompasses not just HCS but other Government departments working closely with HCS and also commissioned services providing health and social care services.
The Committee will consult with the Chief Executive, Chief Officer and other senior officers to gain assurance over the current governance arrangements within HCS and whether they provide quality of care and value for money for the Jersey taxpayer. This will also require examination of the governance of health-related services within other Government departments and commissioned services through public hearings. This will be accompanied by collecting and assessing written submissions from key stakeholders across Health and Social Care.
Deputy Lyndsay Feltham, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said "We hope this review will provide assurance that the system we have in place for the governance in our health and social care system is not only robust enough to be able to implement positive and timely change, but also deliver a high-quality service to those it serves, not forgetting the taxpayer."
