Measured Backing For Health Cuts

The Department of Health has to save £113m as part of cuts imposed by the Executive earlier this year.

Local doctors' leader, Dr Paul Darragh, Chairman of the BMA's Northern Ireland Council (pictured) has been expressing cautious support for the measures after Health Minister, Michael McGimpsey outlined his plans yesterday.

The Minister said a number of things would now be affected by the new round of UK-imposed cuts, including cancer screening and mental health and waiting lists would lengthen.

Paying for health care in NI "depends very much on the resources", he said, however, while the cut-backs were not as bad as anticipated, with Mr McGimpsey planning 2% savings on staffing costs, he noted: "My warning is this, this is as far as I can go on these issues."

He said that commissioning boards must now calculate whether the figures work. This should be known in about two weeks' time.

A delegation of trade unions representatives (RCN, Unite, Unison and NIPSA) including the British Medical Association, met with the Minister on Tuesday.

They discussed the minister's priorities for 2010/11 and the financial difficulties facing health and the fact that the service is not able to meet current targets.

Dr Paul Darragh said: "BMA welcomes the Minister's assurance that frontline services will be protected and that steps are being taken to tackle many public health issues, however BMA is very disappointed at the lack of detail on how targets will be met and whether or not the targets are realistic."

The Chairman of the BMA's Northern Ireland Council continued: "Administration costs within the health and social care system must be reduced by £53m per year, yet there is no suggestion as to how this can happen without damaging frontline care.

"In particular, we are worried about the scaling back on investment in waiting times and that waiting times for surgical procedures could rise to almost nine months.

"This is unacceptable as the numbers on a waiting list are not numbers, they are people who are ill or in pain. A delay in treatment where there is a critical clinical need is not acceptable."

Dr Darragh added: "BMA has repeatedly raised its concerns over the mess surrounding review appointments, and welcomes the statement that he has introduced a target for such appointments.

"However, we cannot see any detail about what this target might be and how it might be managed effectively."

Also commenting specifically on care-in-the-community, Dr Brian Dunn, Chairman of the BMA's GP committee said: "General practice offers high quality care and is constantly evolving to ensure that patients receive the best care possible from their GPs and other practice staff.

"We know that patients wish to be treated in the most appropriate setting for them; if this should be a community setting or within their own homes, then the money to pay for this must be redistributed from the overall budget, effectively following the patient."

The priorities for action also repeatedly refer to 'commissioners' and Dr Dunn added: "It is unclear who these commissioners are. Local commissioning groups sit idle while Trusts continue to commission their own services.

"We believe that the best way to ensure an effective and efficient health service is through real local commissioning that addresses patient needs. Community-based GPs are willing to work with the Minister to ensure that this happens," he said.

BMA Northern Ireland Secretary Mr Danny Lambe raised concerns about the series of cuts that are impacting on the health and social care budget: "The health budget, due to its proportional size, has repeatedly taken the biggest hit from cuts on an ongoing basis. There has been a failure to implement efficiencies in other areas of the public sector.

"Clearly this is not something that Minister McGimpsey can control, but we would urge the Assembly to work together rather than defending individual departments along party lines," he said, noting that "health care spending has been ringfenced in England in addition to a promise of real increases year on year".

"This can be viewed as an example of good practice, and BMA urges that this should be adopted in Northern Ireland."

In conclusion, Dr Paul Darragh said: "BMA is not opposed to efficiency savings per se as long as they result in a more efficient health service rather than being driven by a desire to cut costs resulting in poorer healthcare for patients.

"BMA wants to work in cooperation with Minister McGimpsey to ensure that best possible health service is provided for local people.

"We offer him an open invitation to sit down with us to discuss how we can work together."

(BMcC/GK)