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WQ.537/2019
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES BY DEPUTY R.J. WARD OF ST. HELIER
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 10th DECEMBER 2019
Question
Will the Minister advise on what date the Jersey Care Model will be implemented and, in particular, when Islanders are likely to see any change to G.P. fees or access to their G.P. surgery; and will he further explain what changes they will see to their access to primary care and how the Health Insurance Fund will be used to fund the Model?
Answer
As previously stated, together with my Department, I am fully committed to an ambitious programme to fully develop and implement the new Jersey Care Model and this work will continue throughout the rest of this year and the whole of 2020. This includes the Government Plan commitment to address the development of a model, which supports access to primary care for financially vulnerable individuals during 2020. GPs will play an important role in the new model and where patient costs remain in the new system, measures will be included to reduce or to remove those costs for financially vulnerable patients.
As highlighted in the Government Plan debate on this subject last week, the Jersey Care Model has made significant progress over the last 6 months. The HCS team involved has engaged with clinicians, partners (internal and external to Government), allied health professionals and support staff in the development of the model. They are now in active discussions with the public about the Model to make sure it works for Islanders. In parallel with this, the model is entering into a validation phase to provide external assurance that it is robust and sustainable. This assurance process will run up to June 2020.
Once the analysis of the healthcare system has been undertaken, we can work to agree a sustainable approach to overall healthcare funding, which has been long outstanding.
Early work indicated that significant costs could be reduced via transferring settings of care out of the hospital and re-invested. During the transformation phase, there will be a need to fund transformation – pump-priming services to get them started – which the Health Insurance Fund may provide.