MORE than £13m. was spent last year on patients whose needs could not be met locally, Health and Social Services has confirmed.

One patient alone cost about £400,000 and another £300,000 and that expense is not sustainable, according to finance director Jim Harley.

The total outlay is about 15% of HSSD’s £98m. budget, already the largest of any States department.

Mr Harley said action must be taken to reduce the cost and called for support.

‘If we can start treating more on the island, that will help a lot but we all need to work together on this,’ he said. ‘We can have great ideas here [at HSSD] but without operational, political and public support we can’t fix it.’

Mr Harley (pictured) divided the most expensive areas of off-island care into two main categories.

The first was treatments in the UK including for cancer, heart diseases, neuro-surgery and problems during pregnancy, which cost £4.2m. last year.

The second was placements including those for medical health problems requiring specialist education and care and treating people with physical and sensory disabilities to such extremes as dangerous psychotic cases, costing £9m. last year in total.

Despite ‘somewhat successful’ efforts to minimise the number of off-island placements so far the cost per head has soared, so the department expects to ask Treasury for additional money next year.

Mr Harley said the increasing rate of such spending was unmanageably high.