Health have no staff, so premature baby has to be fed in UK

STAFF shortages in the PEH pharmacy meant that a mother and premature baby had to be flown to the UK because intravenous feeds could not be prepared in Guernsey.
But confirming the incident yesterday, Health minister Hunter Adam said that the cost had been £37,000, not the £60,000 claimed by HSSD board member Mike Hadley.
Deputy Hadley warned that there would be more such cases.
‘Because of the shortages of staff, there will be an increase in procedures which cannot be carried out in the island,’ he said.
‘The issues of remuneration and housing licences do compromise patient care.’
Deputy Hadley broke ranks over next year’s cash allocation which, he was adamant, was not enough to maintain existing services, let alone meet aspirations.
But Deputy Adam was quick to dismiss the claim. (from thisisguernsey)

So why haven't our health authority, been training local people to take on these jobs...

HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES is predicting a £3.25m. overspend on part of its budget allocation this year.
Like the two previous overspends it reported in 2006 and 2007, the problem is with out-of-island placements.
Treasury and Resources ringfenced that part of the budget for 2008 because it was a persistent problem with unpredictable costs.
That means the overspend does not affect Health’s ability to continue providing on-island services because Treasury will cover the costs.
‘There are already a number of measures in place to try to keep the growth in such expenditure under effective control,’ said Health minister Hunter Adam .
‘These include multi-disciplinary panels to consider each off-island placement referral and finding the most cost-effective one, but these are nearly always complex cases that require a high level of services.
‘We are also exploring where it might be possible to provide more services on island, but this is only possible where there is a sufficient number of clients needing the same type of service.’ (from thisisguernsey)

The Health situation is a mess, low staff moral,

Jobs so badly paid that qualified staff go to other states departments, to earn more money in unqualified positions

They whole situation is way out of order, and our States need to get their heads together, and bring this under control before is goes too far...

Blame the last H&SS Minister and the current one....blind leading the blind.........such a shame some dam good staff work in H&SS.

The Health service is a shambles its not the floor staff ie nurses , cleaners , porters etc its the management huge numbers of them all sitting in offices shuffling paper . Its the staff on wards i feel sorry for working double shifts to help out with little pay and no thanks whatsoever.

Well I appreciate that specialist intravenous feeding of a newborn has to be exactly prepared and there are probably not enough cases for training a local in this specialised field. So I guess the costs involved might be justified in this case.
However other areas could be looked at such as follow-up appointments with UK specialists. Surely these are not always necessary if communication between those UK consultants and our specialists is maintained. I have personal experience of this when the UK consultant (or his registrar!) looks at test results carried out on Guernsey and says 'ok thats fine....just carry on what you're doing, I will write to your GP and tell them what tests I want before you come again in 6 months' What a waste of time and money!

Other areas that may be looked at is getting UK consultants to do the occasional visit here to see non-urgent cases. They could see several in a day and it must be cheaper than ferrying lots of people (possibly plus escorts in the case of minors) over there plus the charge to the consultant.

As for training locals for many jobs- of course it can be done but do locals want to do training off island (which may be necessary) to then be employed in what is for Guernsey a low paid job. Of course not. Health Services are the cinderella service, and who would want to be Cinderella when they have a choice.
Be realistic- Health Service- low pay, need to continuously update and improve your qualifications in order to stand still as far as pay is concerned. Difficulty in getting time off for training if there are staff shortages. Often unsocial hours.
Finance Industry- good pay, choice of whether to take further qualifications in order to apply for better paid role, for which support would be given.

People may want to work in the Health Service but can they afford to when it means their family could suffer.

Jan, I agree with the content of your post in many ways and sadly it points out one of the negatives of the finance industry. I can not for the life of me understand why posts of such a specialist nature are not graded at a higher grade after all we are talking about potential little life’s here and the stress on the family is massive.



.

the money they spent out in air fare and other cost could have been given to train a nures to do the job
Our hospital is a great place
the nursing staff are absolutly wonderful and deserve much more money

Preparing this feed would actually have been a pharmacy job not a nursing job. It would have needed to be prepared in exact quantities to give the baby the nutrients it needed (according to blood results) in as small a quantity as possible so as not to overload the tiny babys body with liquid. As I previously said, I dont think we would have enough cases to justify the expense of having someone specifically qualified in this particular speciality to warrant the cost of training.

And I think many people are missing the point about training. Its not just about money or the abilities of local people/nurses. Training in many specialist areas has to take place on the mainland because we do not have the numbers of patients to give a wide enough experience. So a local nurse would have to spend time off island, either in a block of say , Monday to Friday for many weeks or at least study days, with additional weeks to gain the necessary experience.

I know the cost could be found but in my experience local nurses do not want to be away from home so regularly!

If you go through the staff (nurses) who have a qualification in a specialist area i.e. orthopaedic, opthalmology, colo-rectal, urology, paediatrics etc you will find very few nurses who are local. Local nurses are generalists who are very good at their job in a day-to-day way but not specialists

good post jan.