Emergency permissions granted

Tuesday 07 April 2020

Health and Social Care will be able to employ retired and non-practising healthcare professionals, under temporary powers the committee has been given, to help address staff shortages.

The Civil Contingencies Authority has made a number of emergency regulations which aim to support the States’ response to the corona virus pandemic and allow certain aspects of island life to be adapted during the current lockdown environment.

They include:

• Modifying registration requirements for medical professionals so that the Committee for Health & Social Care is authorised to temporarily register any fit, proper and suitably experienced person (such as a retired or non-practising professional) or any other person it considers necessary and proportionate to register, with respect to healthcare professionals who would ordinarily be required to be registered in the UK
• Enabling parish business to be conducted in the absence of ratepayers’ meetings. The emergency regulations enable decisions to be made by the Constables and Douzaine of each parish, subject to advance publication of the matters to be determined and to giving ratepayers the opportunity to make representations.
• Modifying certain requirements under the Mental Health (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2010 to respond to concerns raised by Health & Social Care, such as the difficulty of approved ‘second opinions’ being able to travel to the island. This will be temporarily resolved by utilising appropriately qualified on-island medical practitioners.

"These particular regulations are largely designed to plan ahead to enable us to better manage issues that will emerge as a result of the need for us to all keep our distance from each other...We've always said our aim is to try and plan one step ahead..." #guernseytogether https://t.co/seWLuIrIsy

— Gavin St Pier #GuernseyTogether #StayAtHome (@gavinstpier) April 6, 2020

Deputy Gavin St Pier, Chairman of the Civil Contingencies Authority, said the decisions had been approved at their latest meeting.

“The Civil Contingencies Authority is responsible for using the emergency powers it has to respond to circumstances as they arise during an emergency. 

"These particular regulations are largely designed to plan ahead to enable us to better manage issues that will emerge as a result of the need for us to all keep our distance from each other – such as the difficulty in securing medical practitioners to travel to the island and the inability of parishes to hold ratepayer meetings. We’ve always said our aim is to try and plan one step ahead and this is another example of what this means in practice.

Emergency regulations approved to enable Vale and other parishes to raise funds for refuse collection etc in absence of parish meeting. Comment invited on agenda, however:https://t.co/jwVIYo9JXQ pic.twitter.com/MVVMqGbvhg

— Vale Parish (@ValeParish) April 6, 2020

"We also took the pragmatic decision to grant the Committee for Health & Social Care the temporary authority to register appropriately qualified healthcare professionals who may have previously let their registration lapse, such as those who may have previously retired, so they can get more feet on the ground if they are needed."

All emergency regulations approved by the CCA can be read HERE.