Primary health care is becoming increasingly significant as the world rises to the challenge of chronic diseases, according to Professor Chris Ham from the University of Birmingham.

Prof. Ham was giving a presentation on international trends in health care during a breakfast seminar at the Radisson SAS Baypoint, St Julian’s, organised by the Malta Institute of Management.

He said that hospitals remained important, but no longer at the centre of the health care system. Care and services needed to be integrated and the distinction between primary and secondary care needed to be superseded.

Prof. Ham also highlighted the importance of self care, which he said would account for about 80 per cent of the hidden healthcare system. He said healthcare systems have been slow to recognise that most care is self care.

“A small shift in the willingness of people (including families and carers) to self care has a much bigger impact on organised care than a massive expansion of organised care. Patients must increasingly be seen as co-producers in healthcare,” he said.

The professor spoke about the importance of aggressively promoting changes in skill mixing, for example using nurses to perform medical tasks and health care assistants to perform nursing tasks, as well as understanding the impact of generational changes, like for example, the work-life balance.

Health, the Elderly and Community Care Minister Louis Deguara, MLP spokesman for health Michael Farrugia and Josie Muscat, from St James Hospital, also addressed yesterday morning’s seminar.

Speaking about human capital in the health care system, Dr Deguara said it was widely accepted that human capital was an important prerequisite for economic growth. Until recently, investing in human capital was mostly perceived as investing in education, he said.

This government has never stopped investing in health infrastructure and the culmination of that commitment could be seen in the state-of-the-art Mater Dei hospital with its high quality standards.

Dr Deguara highlighted the specific objectives to address the human capital issue as being the provision of attractive work conditions with pay linked to performance, the development of structured specialist postgraduate training programmes and the strengthening of undergraduate training and capacity enhancement, as well as the fostering of ongoing human resource development, the provision of psychological and emotional support to all health care workers, and the balancing of family and service exigencies.

The spokesman for the Labour Party said it was important to ensure that health care services were in line with modern trends, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector.

Dr Farrugia said the MLP wanted to upgrade St Luke’s hospital to international standards. The intention was to reduce waiting time for a number of health care services by 15 per cent every year, and St Luke’s could provide a valid contribution in this sense, he said, adding that the Labour Party would soon provide a specific plan for St Luke’s.

Dr Muscat, from St James, spoke about health tourism and bemoaned the fact that Malta was simply uncompetitive in this sector.

“Our main problem is that we do not have enough doctors and nurses to cope with the medical services on offer. We invested thousands of liri and the sector has grown. Last year we had about six patients every month, this year we are getting about 20 patients a month.

“But this field is growing in countries like India, Tunisia and Thailand. Our costs are huge, so we cannot compete,” said Dr Muscat.