Child cancer charity calls out "slow and ineffective" Health department

Wednesday 12 July 2023

A children's cancer charity has criticised the "slow and ineffective decision-making" within Health, after "no material progress" was made on recruiting a Paediatric Oncology Nurse assistant role after the charity agreed to fund it last year.

The trustees of the Antoine Trust – which was set up in memory of seven-year-old Antoine Willing who died of a brain tumour in 2012 – voiced their concerns in a letter to politicians scrutinising the work of the Health Department.

In the letter, which the Scrutiny Panel has published online, the charity trustees said that there has been "no material action" on plans to employ a Paediatric Oncology Nurse assistant – despite "this being agreed in principle with management within HCS in July 2022".

In 2012, the Antoine Trust worked with the Health Department to appoint a dedicated Paediatric Oncology Nurse in Jersey.

The charity funded this role from for six years, until 2018, at which point the Health department took over the funding of the Paediatric Oncology Nurse.

Pictured: The Antoine Trust was set up by the parents of seven-year-old Antoine Willing, who passed away in 2012.

Since 2019, the Antoine Trust trustees said they have been "in discussion with HCS in relation to the establishment of, and funding for a new role to provide assistance to, and continuity cover to the Paediatric Oncology Nurse".

The Paediatric Oncology Nurse assistant would be funded by the charity.

The trustees say that this assistant role has been proposed "in response to needs identified by the relevant clinical leads", and would "provide assistance to, and continuity cover" to the current Paediatric Oncology Nurse.

However, the Antoine Trust trustees say that the lack of progress in actually employing someone into the Paediatric Oncology Nurse assistant role has resulted in a "reduced quality of care, with no cost saving to HCS, as well as presumably disenchanted frontline staff".

CLICK TO READ IN FULL: The letter to scrutiny criticises the "slow and ineffective decision making" of the Health department.

In the submission to Scrutiny, the charity trustees describe their overall experience of dealing the Health department over the last 10 years as "split".

They praise the "competent and dedicated" medical personnel, but describe the management personnel as "lacking, with little apparent understanding of the notions of ‘quality’ or ‘care’".

The charity outlined some of the challenges they have faced when attempting to communicate with HCS management personnel, including a "basic lack of communication, with staff repeatedly failing to answer emails or telephones or follow up on previously agreed actions and deliverables" – with a three-month delay in responding to emails described as "not uncommon" by the charity's trustees.

Pictured: The charity trustees claim that a three-month delay in email responses is "not uncommon".

The Antoine Trust trustees added that the "many layers of management" in Health "have made it difficult to hold anyone accountable, or find anyone with decision making capacity".

They explain that "this has led to stalemate situations and has seriously hampered our charity’s ability to deliver on its commitments in a timely manner".

The letter explains: "We have, several times, raised the issue of HCS’ lack of long term plan or vision, (and therefore ancillary budgeting) with various ‘managers’ as it was becoming more and more difficult for us to deal their up hazard approach.

"No one seemed to understand the benefit of ‘a plan’, or if they claimed to, they were quick to blame the failure unto the demands of another committee or governing body.

"They also failed to appreciate the consequences of this lack of planning as it jeopardises our own plans, budgets and fundraising, which in turn will deprive HCS of the support and funding we could have otherwise provided to the service."

The letter is one of several pieces of evidence which have been submitted to the Scrutiny Panel as part of its review into Governance within Health and Social Care, which was launched in response to an ongoing overhaul of the way health management is structured and overseen prompted by a deeply critical review published last year by Professor Hugo Mascie-Taylor.

It also followed concerns about a significant overspends within Health. Last year, the department needed a £13.3m emergency bung to deal with what it described as "unavoidable pressures".