Guernsey sufferers ‘skipping GP appointments over charges’ | EUROtoday

People are avoiding visiting the physician in Guernsey as a result of it’s too costly, a charity has warned.

Price will increase over the previous week noticed the common value of seeing a GP within the island rise to £73, up from £70.50 in 2025, in line with BBC evaluation of the costs listed by the island’s three predominant suppliers. The States of Guernsey offers a £12 subsidy.

Jim Roberts, chief govt of the Guernsey Community Foundation, mentioned: “Lower and middle income households are thinking, ‘I just can’t afford that’.”

Mat Dorrian, Guernsey consultant for the British Medical Association, mentioned the price of offering healthcare had gone up “significantly” all over the world as a consequence of rising demand.

“There’s a lot of pressure on primary care and any healthcare provider to continue to provide quality services at the same level,” he mentioned.

“It would cost more anyway because of medical inflation, but on top of that, there’s increasing demand from the public for services.

“So in different phrases now we have increased numbers coming by main care and secondary care with extra advanced medical situations that want ongoing remedy.”

Roberts warned delaying medical treatment often “made issues worse”.

“That is with the prevailing prices of seeing the physician and getting an ambulance,” he mentioned.

“It stands to cause that as these [costs] go up, and if these will increase aren’t matched by folks’s residing requirements and incomes capability, then the issue is just going to worsen.”

A report by Guernsey’s Public Health in 2025 warned if the healthcare system did not move its focus to preventing ill health it would reach a crisis in the next 20 years.

Dorian said island lifestyle was key to the goal of prevention.

“Guernsey is a fairly wonderful setting for folks to have the ability to entry issues exterior of drugs that may assist forestall them needing to entry medication,” he mentioned.

“So, social prescribing – transferring away from prescribing medicine and truly making an attempt to get folks exterior, interacting and socialising… I feel Guernsey has purchased into that nicely.

“Primary care obviously has a role in promoting that… I think there’s definitely optimism that we can keep Guernsey’s population healthier.”

The present Health and Social Care (HSC) committee had mentioned it might assessment the first care sector as a part of the federal government work plan.

The BBC has contacted HSC for additional remark.