Just because they don’t receive the pension contributions straight-away doesn’t make them any less part of their pay. As we will see when the battle starts to reduce these unsustainable pensions…

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What I found almost amusing was the excuse Deputy Adams gave. I have heard some dire excuses in my time, but this one topped it by a long, long shot. What did he say? “We didn’t expect more people to get ill, and that isn’t out fault”.

Hang on a minute. The population is increasing in the majority of countries worldwide. People are living longer, because of healthcare. More people are being born than die every year in Guernsey. And more people are moving here than leaving. Lets assume, quite fairly, a certain percentage (lets, for example, say 20%) of the population will require hospital treatment. If the population increases, that means more people will require treatment. Not only that, with more elderly people in Guernsey, who are more vulnerable to more illnesses, the situation is worsened at best.

Populations have been increasing annually for decades. Why hasn’t the health budget increased to match these requirements? I can understand you can’t right any department a blank cheque and some cuts need to be made, but this is appalling. I have even less trust and faith in the States of Guernsey than I ever had before. We completely changed the makeup of the States at the last election for a reason-guess the new guns can’t cut it at the moment.

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Seriously though this really is a sham, surely there was some insight into this. Time for the board to reflect and also open up on where all the cash goes … There are a huge number of hard working HSSD staff at all levels, we need get behind them :)

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Looks like a Sandman to me though.

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Seems to me that HSSD which has the biggest budget of all states departments has become the gravy train express for middle and upper management while (from what I’m reading here) has left the real hard working nurses and staff on the front line behind. It’s no wonder they’re constantly going over budget when they’re carrying so many freeloaders.

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I’ve experienced nothing but excellent medical care on the rare occasions I’ve visited there, and it saddens me to think that those staff who really are essential are going to suffer (through ward closure and reduced services) whilst those who aren’t will most probably retain their jobs.

All back to front.

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I do have some sympathy for the dept, because medical inflation is not the same as normal everyday inflation and you cannot balance the HSSD books on a year-on-year basis. However, I am concerned by the comments on here by people in the industry who say that there are too many overpaid managers who routinely overlook the thoughts and opinions of the people on the front line.

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You are right abut the “UK style” decisions. Unfortunately the people who make the decisions on bringing in these highly paid staff, are almost certianly from the UK…… and look at the mess they are in!

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It’s totally rife in all departments, Environment being a classic example, with the knock on effect of totally unsuitable expensive decisions being made ‘UK style’ and of course, those jobs not being made available to locals in what is a shrinking job market, more people to add to our burgeoning population, and local house prices being kept falsely high because they’re being bought/rented by imported staff on substantially higher wages than the average local.

What exactly IS so great about the ‘UK’ way anyway? Britannia may have been great, once, but right now their supposedly forward thinking attitude doesn’t seem to be doing them ant more favours than Jersey’s is on their side of the water.

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This is the most common sense paragraph on this forum, you have hit the nail on the head!

“On the health issue, I believe a major part of the problem is that over the years too much so called NHS best practice has been foisted upon our health service by managers and others who have been brought in to fill jobs and that has created its own problems.
We also need in my view a massive recruitment drive to attract back all the local people who once worked for HSSD.”

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On the health issue, I believe a major part of the problem is that over the years too much so called NHS best practice has been foisted upon our health service by managers and others who have been brought in to fill jobs and that has created its own problems.
We also need in my view a massive recruitment drive to attract back all the local people who once worked for HSSD.

As for the present situation, it is about leadership and it will be for the States to decide whether Dep Adam and his board will continue to head up HSSD
or not, it would be premature in my view to make a judgment either way. There is little doubt that HSSD have a strong case for more funding but I don’t think that is the issue here, this is all about the way the whole thing has been handled and that is what Dep Adam and his board will be judged on.

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