The authorities are planning to introduce measures to encourage more people to use health centres after a performance audit by the Auditor General found that in 2014, only 30 per cent of the Maltese population used the primary healthcare services and 70 per cent preferred to go to a private GP. Similar levels of satisfaction were reported for both public and private primary healthcare services.
The Permanent Secretary to the Ministry for Health, Joseph Rapa, told a meeting of the House Public Accounts Committee that the ministry was launching various initiatives in order to address the low figure.
Amongst them was the upgrading of the services and equipment available at health centres. New services included X-ray and blood test facilities.
The health service’s organisational infrastructure had also been seen to with the introduction of specialised units such as Chronic Disease Management Clinics.
Furthermore, more services currently available at Mater Dei Hospital were being rolled out to health centres, which had been connected to a centralised e-prescription service last October.
These health centres were now offering a level of service comparable to that offered by private GPs, and similar efforts were being made to upgrade dispensaries.
Opposition MP Claudio Grech pointed out that a key issue brought up in the audit was the lack of continuity of care. In many cases, this was leading to duplication of services.
This point was echoed by Auditor General Charles Deguara, who mentioned cases of people visiting both public and private health care facilities for advice on the same condition. He added that this could be due to patients’ preference for the advice offered by their own GPs.
Michael Gonzi (PN) suggested the implementation of a voucher system to address this problem.
Instead of being automatically allocated practitioners, patients should be able to choose to be examined and/or treated by a practitioner of their choice, he said. They would be given a voucher to cover part of all of the cost of the visit, which the practitioner could then be compensated for. This would avoid the duplication of services, maintain continuity of care, and put patients more at ease.
The possibility of implementing such a system was disputed by Mr Rapa on the grounds that it was not permissible under current procurement procedures, but committee chairman, Tonio Fenech said that he doubted whether any single practitioner could reach the minimum threshold required for such procedures to kick in.
Dr Gonzi also suggested that the newly upgraded myHealth patient records system be further extended, to allow GPs and other healthcare professionals to add information to patient files.