MANY Islanders will heave a sigh of relief when our reciprocal health agreement with the UK is finally reinstated next week.

Although significant numbers of people will have been able to secure private insurance to fill the gap left by the abrogation of the agreement two years ago, others – notably the aged and those in poor health – will have faced major difficulties, not to mention the worrying prospect of having to travel without cover.

The present Health Minister, Deputy Anne Pryke, and her advisers are to be congratulated for having renegotiated a fair and acceptable deal. As well as making a refreshing change from the multi-layered controversy currently surrounding our health services, their success will ensure that Jersey residents travelling to the UK will be entitled to the necessary treatment free of charge if they fall ill and will not have to worry about receiving huge bills or purchasing expensive insurance cover.

Equally, the other side of the deal – Jersey’s commitment to offering free treatment for those travelling here from the UK – will be advantageous. It is likely that elderly or infirm people in the UK who were potential visitors to the Island were deterred from coming here because of the lack of health cover. In addition, the new deal will be welcomed with great enthusiasm by those Islanders who play host to elderly or infirm relatives or friends from the other side of the Channel.

It appears that we can now look forward to a new era of co-operation with the UK health authorities and that is, of course, the issue of principal concern. That said, it is instructive to look back at the events which, in the first place, led to the loss of the reciprocal arrangement. It is now clear that we benefited disproportionately from the terms of the previous deal and that the UK can hardly be blamed for having reviewed the situation and deciding that enough was enough.

It is also seems clear that, through complacency or holding the unrealistic hope that no one would notice the lack of symmetry in the old deal, an earlier set of health administrators and their political masters failed to act to forestall the UK’s unilateral action. Given the manifest importance of the reciprocal agreement, this was a serious and very regrettable failure.