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WQ.208/2025
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES
BY DEPUTY J. RENOUF OF ST. BRELADE
QUESTION SUBMITTED ON MONDAY 12th MAY 2025
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 19th MAY 2025
Question
"Further to his comments at the Health and Social Security Panel Women's Health' public hearing, will the Minister provide details and evidence regarding his assertion that preventative health care and digital connectivity will require "in excess of £100 million over five years", and specify how this figure was arrived at and provide a breakdown of the anticipated expenditure?"
Answer
The need for greater investment in both digital health services and preventive health services became very apparent to me after taking office. I asked officers in Digital Health services and Public Health to consider which areas of digital and preventive health required additional investment to make health and care services more efficient, resilient and sustainable.
This workstream forms part of the investment programme referred to as Project Breakwater' and both the case for investing in prevention and future costs associated with digital connectivity, is in the early stages of policy development.
In April two draft high level business cases were presented to me with an estimated cost in excess of £100 million over five years, which was the figure I stated in the Women's Health' public hearing. These business cases will be subject to a review by Treasury and Resources before they are presented to the Council of Ministers as part of the 2026-2029 Budget process. As is usual process, these business cases will be shared with Scrutiny in confidence as part of the standard processes for scrutinising the Budget.
Whilst I cannot provide a breakdown of the anticipated expenditure at this time because these figures are subject to a review by Treasury and Resources, I can confirm that the case for prevention is detailed in the Annual Director of Public Health Report 2024 and considerable work has already gone into developing options for future prevention services. An assessment has also been made by an independent organisation specialising in digital healthcare maturity, as a health and care system. This maturity measures the interconnectivity and access to clinical data by all care providers, primary, secondary, tertiary (off island), community, domiciliary and care home providers.
Areas of digital and preventive health and care improvements under consideration include, but are not limited to, the following:
Preventative health and care includes
• Access, uptake and availability of positive activities for children, young people and families
• Identifying need earlier through better understanding those at risk and increasing uptake of health checks
• Joining up lifestyle support programmes to enable islanders to eat well, be more physically active, improve their wellbeing and reduce substance use
• Expanding universal screening programmes and diagnosis of health conditions at an earlier stage
Digital health and care includes:
• enabling digital referrals and discharges
• providing a single patient record for all health and care providers to appropriately access
• a clinical electronic data store for notes and diagnostics
• an integration layer to enable the provision of remote monitoring and virtual wards
• a business intelligence and analytics capability to enable advanced planning
• population and cohort risk management
• effective use of resources and system flow