Healthcare may swallow annual income - health chief

A public meeting in St Helier heard Jersey's healthcare system needed a "radical shake-up"

Healthcare provision could swallow up almost all of Jersey's annual income without change, a senior civil servant has told a public meeting.

Chris Bown, Jersey Health Services’ interim chief officer, said: "The income we bring in as a nation isn’t going to cover the cost.

"I've seen economists predicting, quite sensibly, that there is a point in Jersey where the total income for the government will be consumed in health. So no education, no police force, nothing else – just health."

Deputy Tom Binet, Jersey's health minister, told the meeting in St Helier that healthcare on the island needed a "radical shake-up" to make it more efficient and better co-ordinated.

They were speaking to an audience of more than 100 people as part of a panel on the future of healthcare in the bailiwick.

Rosemarie Finley, chief executive of a local healthcare charity, said the cost of providing primary services could become unsustainable because of rising numbers of elderly people with long-term conditions.

She said about 20,000 islanders were now aged 65 years or older, with 30% having five or more conditions.

Andy Weir, head of Mental Health and Adult Social Care, said one in four mental health posts in the UK were vacant and that Jersey's tendency to "wage war" on local services had deterred some applicants for local jobs.

Mr Binet said short-term tax breaks for potential health workers were not a workable solution and it could not be confined to one area of employment.