It is very touching and occasionally disconcerting that not a day passes without my being accosted by someone expressing concerns about our health care system.

From my first day in office I made it a point to keep in touch personally with patients to understand their worries and pains.

I am well aware that the healthcare system, more often than not, does not immediately address their troubles.

This is an ongoing experience particularly related to the emergency services, long waits to have an operation and difficulties picking up free medicines.

In March 2013, the new government inherited a national healthcare service (NHS) that had a pleasant outer appearance but was riddled with metaphoric ‘dry rot’; the long-accumulated results of neglect and waste that had been rampant for decades.

There are some very dedicated doctors, nurses and paramedics who are doing their utmost, but when a system is rotten they are fighting against the odds.

The previous government had allowed services to deteriorate and tolerated a degree of decadence.

Our mammoth task now is to turn things around and keep things firmly focused on the needs of patients.

In March, the Ministry for Health embarked on a careful analytical trajectory to identify the root-causes of this dire situation.

The aim is to turn around this detrimental position, regain equilibrium, provide opportunities for growth and ensure sustainability.

The ‘out of stock’ situation demands immediate attention.

Notwithstanding that a drug shortage is considered to be a global problem, the ‘doing nothing’ adage is not acceptable.

Other European member states are facing similar drug shortages so we are participating in a joint European body to strengthen collaboration and cooperation to find feasible solutions.

At a national level, the ministry is working to eradicate, among other things, the tainted procurement culture and methodology compounded by manual stock recording practices at the NHS’s major stock-holding locations.

The absence of information technology in some areas and fragmented, stand-alone IT systems in others, are a problem. Technology must definitely play a part.

In an effort to address this precarious situation, the Ministry for Health is moving towards introducing of an enterprise resource planning modus operandi which, through a phased approach, will include the introduction of electronic prescriptions and the use of patient-identification smart cards.

These initiatives are intended to mitigate deficiencies through timely identification and curbing of wastage, optimising the use of all available resources across the NHS supply chain and introducing a robust, integrated IT cross-functional infrastructure that enables alignment and fast, accurate data exchange across the NHS value chain.

­The previous government had allowed services to deteriorate and tolerated a degree of decadence

As well as looking inwards the ministry is also looking outwards, and in the near future will be facilitating access to online drug interaction information.

All these initiatives shall provide a new, faster way of harnessing data to facilitate better decision-making for the health care professionals for the benefit of the patient.

The NHS reform vis-à-vis stock availability is also being extended to cover much-needed changes inherited from the bureaucratic, slow-moving tendering and procurement system that causes more operational problems.

A ‘one size fits all’ tendering process is neither sensitive to the needs of the health care market nor to the needs of the patients; basically, it treats the procurement of medicines in the same way as the procurement of plastic bags.

This antiquated way of doing things has a direct impact on the efficient and effective use of all our available resources, be it human capital, financial and material (medicines).

Incredibly, this tendering system is promoting bad utilisation of the available government stock, by encouraging patients to hoard medicines at home.

This vicious cycle is pushing the expired stock levels up, as hoarded medicines either expire or patients’ medical treatment changes and then this ‘extra’ stock is simply thrown away.

In order to address this, the Ministry for Health, with the involvement of other stakeholders, is working towards the simplification of procurement procedures.

While transparency, responsibility and accountability will remain sine qua non, it will be ascertained that the methodologies applied will be nimble and agile enough to respond to the unique demands of the health care market. In a nutshell – the new procurement systems will be patient-centric.

People need to be involved and knowledgeable about reform processes so that, eventually, the reform will benefit from nationwide ownership.

The organisation-wide NHS reform is still in its initial stages.

Nevertheless, we are on the right track as only six months down the line we are already reaping some results.

There is already an overall, albeit marginal, improvement in the stock availability position.

We are well aware of the challenges that lie ahead, but this ministry is committed to its vision and is prepared to weather the storm to arrive at its final goal – excellent and sustainable free health care that benefits everyone.

Godfrey Farrugia is the Minister for Health.