Patients in Northern Ireland urged to voice concerns on Health Service Savings Plans

Crohn’s & Colitis UK would like to draw a new consultation on planned savings in 5 Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts to the attention of people with IBD and their families in Northern Ireland. We believe that some of the proposed savings outlined by the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust in particular could have a seriously negative impact on IBD  patients.

The Department of Health (DOH) has asked the Trusts to develop savings plans adding up to £70 million to balance their books for the coming financial year. Following a series of meetings, the plans were published and are open for comment until Thursday 5th October.

The Belfast Health and Social Care Trust Savings Plan, which sets out proposals to deliver savings of £26.3 million, is of particular concern for people with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. The consultation document outlines a number of savings proposals that “may be considered major and /or controversial” including deferring high-cost treatments for people with IBD until 2018/19 ( biologics and biosimilars) (on p.17 of the document)

The Savings Plan states that “it is recognised that patients’ lives would be adversely impacted by having to live with the conditions without treatment”.

Crohn’s & Colitis UK also recognises that patients being denied the recommended treatments when they are needed most could lead to very poor outcomes including uncontrolled symptoms, unplanned admissions to hospital, emergency surgery and further complications.

This proposal does not affect people already receiving biologic or biosimilar treatments but would apply to new patients.

Crohn’s & Colitis will be responding in full to this consultation and will be working with colleagues from The Northern Ireland IBD Interest Group and other key stakeholders to coordinate this response, highlighting the deep inequity and potentially devastating impacts of these plans.

We would urge anyone directly affected by Crohn’s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis who is concerned about these proposed changes to submit their own response, using the questionnaire in section 6 of the consultation document.