Former Health administrator Graham Prouse: ‘Officials exaggerated charges’
JERSEY ‘fiddled the books’ for years to try to keep the reciprocal health agreement with the UK going as long as possible, a retired senior civil servant has claimed.
The ex-Health administrator said that it had been known for 20 years that the Island was getting the much better end of the deal.
Graham Prouse alleged that Island officials exaggerated charges to disguise the real costs to the UK.
The British government axed the arrangement at the end of March, complaining that it was handing over £3.9 million a year for the treatment of UK visitors when it was only cost ing Jersey an estimated £300,000 to provide the service.
Mr Prouse said that senior Health officials in Jersey knew the agreement was in ‘serious trouble’ as far back as the late 1980s and 1990s.
Mr Prouse was the Health department civil servant with responsibility for the 11 reciprocal agreements Jersey had with other territories. He had that role for 25 years from 1971 until 1995.
in Jersey knew the agreement was in ‘serious trouble’ as farback as the late 1980s and 1990s. ‘The only remedial action undertaken was to fiddle thebooks.
As Jersey still did not know what it cost to treat patients, we took the Bupa scale of fees and applied those costs.
‘For example, we also exaggerated the statistics. Instead of counting an attendance at the physiotherapy department as one visit, we counted in units of 27-minute treatment times,’ he said.
It was claimed by local politicians and civil servants that the news that the UK intended to axe the agreement came as a ‘bolt from the blue’ in March 2008.
But Mr Prouse said that for two decades it was well known that the UK was on the wrong end of the deal.
‘We complacently breathed a sigh of relief as we escaped discovery year after year. On 31 March this year Jersey got its come-uppance,’ he said.
Mr Prouse said that in the original agreement drawn up in 1976 it was never intended that money should change hands and none did up until his retirement in 1995.
‘The intention was that the costs of both sides would be kept within 20 per cent of each other’s,’ said Mr Prouse.
However, he said that a lack of record keeping, especially on the UK’s part, meant that the NHS did not know who it had treated and where.
But the system changed when Margaret Thatcher came to power, as she introduced an internal market system with a crude system of cost accounting and record keeping.
‘With the actual costs to the UK exposed for the first time, by the late 80s the balance began to become seriously out of kilter and never recovered,’ said Mr Prouse.
Spoken out
Mr Prouse has spoken out, as he believes that claims made about the background of the UK withdrawal may have misled the public.
It was revealed earlier this week that Channel Islands health chiefs knew about the
UK’s intention to ditch the deal at least two years before making it public.
And the 72-year-old also believes that the States have a responsibility to pay for travel insurance for Islanders aged 75 or over to ensure that they can travel to the UK and elsewhere safe in the knowledge they are covered for emergency treatment.
Mr Prouse was the Health department civil servant with responsibility for the 11 reciprocal agreements Jersey had with other territories. He had that role for 25 years from 1971 until 1995.
He said that the first formal arrangement with the UK was put in place in 1976 and covered the Channel Islands.
‘Therefore, if Guernsey’s costs rose, Jersey’s had to reduce in order that the combined insular costs were kept within the agreement,’ he said.
Article posted on 28th May, 2009 - 3.00pm
UK health deal: Jersey ‘fiddled the books’