Full Story:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0549.htm
Health and Social Services and Education are bracing themselves for difficult times following the release of the Budget. Health minister Peter Roffey said his departments budget was the best he could expect but the increase in the medium term was not sustainable for future health care spending. In the UK, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in the Queens speech, said that the National Health Service over the next few years would go up by RPI plus 4% each year. We just dont have that amount of money available to spend and over time we are spending less per head of the population on health than the UK its going to be a struggle, said Deputy Roffey. On a positive note, it is better than we thought it was going to be a few months ago. The money is sufficient to carry out what we call level running but it will be very difficult to introduce any new services or new treatments other than what has been in the news the last few days 'an Pfund805,000 windfall allocated for cervical cancer vaccinations and colorectal screening programme', he said. Deputy Roffey said he was extremely relieved that Treasury and Resources had listened to his departments concerns about the off-island budget. The really positive thing is the agreement to ring fence the off-island budget, he said. We have been extremely good at keeping down our on-island budget, but our off-island expenses have risen considerably and that is something that is completely out of our control. Its a huge relief for us in terms of being able to control our own destiny in that the off-island expenses will come from a central fund, he said. Health has been forced in the past to take out of its on-island budget to supplement rises in off-island costs.
No comments:
Post a Comment