Home care cuts row deepens

Wednesday 12 October 2016

Jersey's health department is under fire for not being open about a change in policy, which will see more than 200 vulnerable or disabled Islanders paying substantially more for their care.

Health have decided not to subsidise home care services in 2017, a move which has led the charity which currently provides those services, Family Nursing and Home Care (FNHC), to make the jobs of 118 staff 'at risk.'

FNHC says the reduction in funding means it will have to charge the full rate for its home care services - such as help with dressing, helping with medication, bathing, getting out of bed or going to the toilet - which will push up the cost from £11 per hour to around £19.

Under pressure from politicians in the States yesterday, Health Minister Andrew Green said that FNHC had known about reduction in subsidy for two years, and it had been phased in to help FNHC:

"It is the responsibility of that organisation to communicate changes, not my department. HSSD provides and and will continue to provide funding of over £7million a year, over 80% of the overall funding, and a relatively small proportion relates to the Home Care service. FNHC are not the only provider, but they are the only subsidised by my department."

However, FNHC Chief Executive Julie Gafoor says that while negotiations on reducing the Home Care subsidy might have lasted two years, the actual details only emerged several months ago:

"We received written confirmation in April 2016 that HSSD would be removing funding for the Home Care service with effect from 1^st January 2017 and that there would be a staged reduction in funding for 2016. At the end of July of this year we were informed the staged reduction would equate to £680k. This was later reduced to £432k after further negotiations." 

"We believe there has been a reluctance from HSSD in announcing this significant change in policy which would have enabled the States to scrutinise the proposal and the public to be informed. It is not our responsibility to communicate a change in policy.  It is HSSD’s responsibility to communicate a change in policy to the States and the public – this has not been evident."

Her comments were echoed by Adrian Blampied, FNHC's Finance Director:

"This is a change in policy which hasn’t been communicated to either Scrutiny or the States Chamber. We met HSSD earlier in the year, and implored Senator Green to make a statement to the States, but that wasn’t heeded.

"We have a very loyal staff, we understand they are upset and are taking the news hard. We want to work collaboratively with them and the unions to make the business successful for the future, we don’t want staff to leave their jobs, or clients to leave us.

 "We understand their frustration, we are frustrated too, we believe we have done our best to negotiate with HSSD.

"There are confusing messages, like our future funding cut was only 500,000 - but we have faced nearly that already this year."