The GSD has this evening said that while the GHA restructure announced today is welcome it “shows that there were serious systemic failures in the health service caused by years of Government mismanagement.”

A statement continued: “These are some of the measures that the GSD have precisely been calling for and for which the Government have been rubbishing the Opposition. The new measures are an admission that the GHA and its medical and non-medical workforce have not had the managerial support and structure that they so desperately need. Robust steps need to be taken to radically shake up the GHA for patients, other service users and the staff themselves. We will continue to closely scrutinise every aspect of healthcare until we are satisfied that our hard-working GHA staff are provided with the support and structure that is fit for purpose. In relation to care we have regularly highlighted the need for a Care Quality Commission for Gibraltar and we now hope that the Government will create this commission given the emphasis it has placed on quality of care.”

Shadow Minister for Health, Elliott Phillips, said:

“During the last election we constructed a package of positive, constructive and indeed radical proposals for the reform of health care. Amongst many others measures we promised to install an independent and professional management team as well as many structural and qualitative changes to improve the delivery of healthcare to users. Last week in a further example of constructive opposition we pledged support for the reinstatement of a CEO for the Hospital and a CFO to monitor procurement and the spending of public money in health care. All of these GSD promises and pledges were put forward because we fundamentally believe that reform was badly needed. We also believe that successive GSLP Health Ministers have failed to grasp the nettle. Today we have seen the Government finally take welcome steps, but which admit in full technicolour their previous disregard for this area. We are glad they have adopted our recommendations that structural changes should be made.”

Mr Phillips went on to say:

“It’s time to shake the tree: just today I received further complaints from parents whose children have not seen a dentist for over 2 years and it has been reported to me that the emergency eye clinic which offers a vital service to our community has been closed without explanation to service users. These are not small matters they are important to our community and whilst we welcome the Government adopting GSD policy there are day to day systemic problems which need to be resolved immediately so as to avoid a plague of complaints and claims about quality of healthcare in Gibraltar.”