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Department of Health Press Conference May 2010 12 May 2010 At a Press Conference held at the Department of Health offices at Markwell House on 11th May 2010, the Member for Health, Mr Dudley Butt MLC, and senior officers from the Department briefed members of the Media on the Department’s approaches to conducting planned reviews of services, Value for Money tendering exercises, and specific activity to generate savings in order to maintain or improve services. Mr Dudley Butt MLC said, “Government Financial Directions require that all contracted-out services of any significant value must be regularly put out to tender to ensure that the Manx taxpayer is receiving the best possible value for money. Tenders always include clear indications of the quality and service standards which the successful contractor must deliver. Inevitably, from time to time well-established contractors will be unsuccessful and will lose the contract to another provider. Recent examples include the change of Air Ambulance provider, and the change of Liverpool taxi contractor for providing taxis to Liverpool hospitals. Such changes to established service-providers can cause unease amongst patients but there are always safeguards in place against service failures. Members of the public sometimes perceive the normal Government tendering processes for contracts as evidence of ‘penny pinching’. They are not – they are part and parcel of our good stewardship of taxpayers’ money. Where changes of contractor take place the new contractor must be given every support and opportunity to show that they too can provide a high quality service.” Norman McGregor Edwards, Director of Health Strategy and Performance, confirmed, “In seeking to ensure that essential Health Services are maintained, no service area is immune from scrutiny – as taxpayers would expect there are no ‘sacred cows’ or ‘no go’ areas. Faced with growing demand for services and what is effectively a ‘stand still’ budget this year, but with significant pressures to meet rising costs across the Service, the Health Service must look closely at every area of activity and staff are very much involved in this scrutiny. The All Ideas Matter (AIM) scheme has generated over 120 ideas on how savings can be achieved in the Health Services without compromising patient care and, in addition, over 50 other ideas are actively being considered. Many of these ideas involve looking at long-standing arrangements which have not been looked at critically in recent memory, if ever. For example, does the way we provide exemptions from health services charges meet the needs of the Health Service and Manx residents, and are all the services we provide being provided in the right place? Could some be provided in the community or in primary care rather than hospital, should some currently provided in the UK be brought on-island, and should some no longer be provided here but be provided off –island? Are there some services which are simply no longer relevant to a modern Health Service, or are there some services we should be providing which we currently do not provide?” Tony Jones, General Manager Primary Care, explained “Planned reviews of services are constantly taking place and are a part of normal Health Services activity. For example, they can be generated because there may be concerns that services need to be updated or are not currently meeting patient needs, because there are new standards or ways of working being adopted in that service, or because there is a rolling programme of reviews. Such reviews are normally comprehensive and far reaching, involve the front-line staff concerned and start with fundamental questions such as ‘Is the service fine left as it is, should it be closed down or delivered in a different way, and what are the options in between those two?’. Recent reviews include Nursing at Noble’s and Ramsey and District Cottage Hospital which led to significant moves of nurses between specialties, the Noble’s blood clinic and, most recently, the Family Planning Service.” Mr Jones described how this latter review was initiated and what the outcome has been, at the press conference. Finally, Norman McGregor Edwards addressed recent public concern over alleged inefficient management at Noble’s Hospital and at Crookall House. Contrary to some comments indicating that Noble’s Hospital had over 200 managers, he pointed out that it had 26, all managing essential support services such as Catering, Pharmacy, Medical Records, highly-specialised IT, and the organisation of clinical services. The administration staff at Noble’s Hospital provide vital services in the organisation of clinics, appointments, and other clinical services thus releasing doctors and nurses to provide more care for patients rather than undertaking routine but important administrative tasks. At Crookall House, rather than the ‘hundreds and hundreds’ of staff mentioned recently in a radio interview, there are actually 67, for some of whom Crookall House is only a work base. Clinical services managed from Crookall House by professional clinical staff, many of whom have patient caseloads, include Community Dentistry, Speech and Language Therapy, Podiatry and Community Nursing. The administrative staff provide essential services such as patient registration with GP practices, payment arrangements for primary care contractors, and allocation of patients to NHS dentists. Norman McGregor Edwards commented, “The UK NHS cliché of management and administration-bashing just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny on the Isle of Man – and I worry that by concentrating on what is seen as an easy target by simply saying ‘Cut the managers, cut the admin staff’, people avoid facing the real problems of how we can ensure that the services we need are able to continue to be provided in the long term”. More stories >>>
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