NO one will be denied care for not having insurance under plans to charge new non-working Islanders for Emergency Department treatment – with the bill dealt with afterwards, the Health Advisory Board has heard.
As part of the proposals, new non-working residents would also have to pay for emergency care until they have lived in Jersey for 12 consecutive months.
However, those who are in Jersey on a temporary work permit would be provided free necessary healthcare.
In a Health Advisory Board meeting yesterday, principal officer for Strategic Health Policy Harry Hambrook said that these people would be expected to have travel or general health insurance when they arrive in Jersey to cover this care rather than it be free.
The board’s chair, Carolyn Downs, asked what a clinician should do if they were faced with the difficult scenario of someone without insurance arriving at the Emergency Department in need of medical attention.
The clinician would not have to decide whether or not to treat them, Mr Hambrook explained, as everyone in need of treatment would receive it. The bill for the costs would be dealt with afterwards, he added.
Elsewhere in the meeting, there were discussions over a proposal for the richest 30% of Jersey patients to have to cover all or part of their travel and accommodation costs if they go off the Island for treatment.
As first revealed by the JEP on Monday, the department said in a report that it was considering introducing the measure to “ensure that finite public funding is used fairly and directed to Islanders who need care”.
It warned that without change, travel and accommodation costs will “continue to exceed budget” – potentially forcing cuts or restrictions elsewhere in the health service.
But the panel heard yesterday that there would not be a simple cut-off threshold at which point a person above a certain income has to pay – but rather a threshold that increases with each child a family has.
There may be discretionary decisions made regarding financial support in cases of people who need to travel to the UK and pay for accommodation while having radiotherapy, said Mr Hambrook.
While this was something the board welcomed, members asked who would be making these “discretionary” decisions, and suggested that they be made by a clinician rather than an administrative worker.
The same report also revealed that law-drafting instructions have been prepared to allow charges for patients who are medically fit to leave hospital but choose to remain, in a bid to free up beds.
There would be a five-day grace period before this charge kicked in. After that, daily charges would apply – costing £965 for a private patient bed, £650 for a private room on a shared ward, and £450 for an acute bed on a shared ward.
Ms Downs, who welcomed the measure, called for this five-day period to be enforced strictly.
How the Health Department will clear the backlog of 722 Islanders waiting more than a year for
surgery was also discussed during the Health Advisory Board meeting.
The Elective Waiting List Recovery Plan models four recovery scenarios, however the “do nothing” option would “significantly worsen waiting times”, increasing the risk of “avoidable patient harm”.
Therefore, Hazel Cunningham, acting finance director told the meeting that senior leaders back the “do minimum plus additional lists” option.
Under this approach, additional theatre sessions – including public operations on a Saturday – would be targeted directly at the backlog.
In orthopaedics, 26 extra Saturdays between June and December 2026 would deliver an additional 224 procedures. In general surgery, 22 Saturdays would provide 180 extra operations.
Ms Cunningham explained that a total of £1.5 million is proposed to be ringfenced immediately to start moving the plan forward.
The board also discussed the recently released critical review into the Neurology Department conducted by the Royal College of Physicians, which identified “workload pressure” as a “dominant theme”.
The chair emphasised that the review also spoke of a “strong commitment” among all those involved in the neurology service and its management, including the ministerial team, to improving neurology patient care.
