A report on steps being taken to make health and social care services more effective and efficient will be laid before Tynwald when it meets later this month.
The report details the DHSC’s plan for efficiencies and revenue increases, as well as details of its financial performance monitoring. Tynwald asked for the report as a condition for agreeing supplementary funding of ?11.1 million for the DHSC for the financial year 2016/17. This came in addition to supplementary funding of ?9.9 million granted for the financial year 2015/16.
Minister for Health and Social Care, Kate Beecroft MHK, said: “It is important that Government is held to account for public spending, even more so when agreed budgets are exceeded. Like most developed countries, our Island’s health and social care service is facing significant challenges in meeting growing demand, particularly as a result of demographic changes and advances in medical science.
“Having required an additional ?21 million in funding over the last two years, it is clear that significant work is required to address these challenges. This is not an exercise in cost cutting. The report sets out the steps being taken by the Department to improve efficiency and value for money whilst at the same time modernising services to deliver effective care. This is very much part of the DHSC’s ambitions as set out in its five year strategy.
“Achieving this will be difficult but it is something we must deliver. That means relentlessly bearing down on inefficiency and, in the longer term, making the strategic changes required to ensure care services are sustainable for the future.”
The report covers work underway across the divisions of the DHSC such as: changing hospital support services; reducing the reliance on expensive locum and agency staff; stopping procedures of limited clinical value; implementing the Government’s Digital Strategy; controlling spend on medicines and finding opportunities to grow revenue through the private healthcare market.
Improving efficiency at Noble’s Hospital alone is targeted to deliver ?8.4 million, ?5.4m of this figure has already been identified
The report also explores more strategic, longer term, change such as: delivering more care in the community closer to people’s homes; and a more strategic approach to commissioning – the assessment of people’s needs and putting appropriate services in place to meet these.
