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A key report revealing the biggest problems facing the health service - which was originally withheld due to concerns about “sensationalised” reporting - has been released today alongside an apology from senior officials.
Data included the ‘Quality and Performance Report’ spans emergency care, surgeries, mental health and maternity, and ranges from service waiting times to the number of serious incidents.
Showing that the Health Department only hit around half of its 36 performance targets, the report also noted the work ongoing to address areas of concern.
Releasing the report this afternoon, Director Caroline Landon thanked the media for the “very helpful challenge” to “groupthink” among senior officials - pressure she said had led to the report being published around six months earlier than originally intended.
As first reported by Express in June, Ms Landon and Group Medical Director Rob Sainsbury told the Public Accounts Committee that Health would not be releasing the report because they feared media coverage of the “naked” account of their department would be “sensationalised” and may discourage patients from seeking help.
Following questions from Express, a spokesperson for Health told Express that they report wouldn't publish until the first quarter of 2022 due to data quality issues.
Pictured: HCS Director General Caroline Landon apologised for what she described as "clumsy" comments about why her department's performance report shouldn't be released.
It was then due to be released last week at a ‘public’ meeting of the Health and Community Services (HCS) Board, but the media were not permitted to attend, despite a challenge from Express.
This afternoon, however, it was confirmed that the Health Department’s performance reports would now be shared regularly, and that the media would be able to attend and report on Board meetings during which its findings would be discussed in greater depth.
Heralding the start of what she described as a more “transparent” era for Health, Ms Landon offered an “unreserved apology” on behalf of herself and Mr Sainsbury for their Public Accounts Committee comments, saying they recognised that “this data actually belongs to our patients.”
She added: "Those comments were not from a place from an ill-intent, at best they were protective, at worst paternalistic, and we do not wish to be like that.”
"...The words we used were clumsy and ill-chosen, and we’d like to apologise unreservedly to media colleagues for that," she said.
Ms Landon continued: "We listened to what you said, we went away, we processed that, we reflected on it and it absolutely has impacted on us, publishing this report in August as opposed to our original plan which was to do it in the first quarter of next year.
"So I think sometimes it’s very helpful to have external voices because sometimes we get into our health bubble and we perhaps get into groupthink - so thank you for being the vehicles for that very helpful challenge, which we have listened and responded to."
She went on to state that there had been a “miscommunication” from Government over why media had been barred from the Health Board meeting, and that the only reason reporters were unable to attend was due to covid restrictions. The full meeting is now available to view on YouTube.
Video: The HCS Board meeting held last week about the new report's findings.
Ms Landon said the Health Department was making an effort to be “much more transparent around what we do, and recognising that we are public servants and that this data actually belongs to our patients, not to us.”
Among the report's key findings were:
two in five outpatients were waiting over 90 days for their first appointment, and nearly half of elective admissions patients were waiting nearly 90 days, as of June 2021.
Throughout the year up until June 2021, more than two in five Talking Therapies clients had to wait 18 weeks to start treatment.
During the same period, more than a quarter of Emergency Department arrivals took longer than 15 minutes to be triaged.
In the Maternity Ward, more than a third of deliveries were C-sections compared to a standard of around 22%, while more than 8% of of deliveries resulted in a post-partum haemorrhage, compared to a standard of fewer than 3%.
Health Minister Deputy Richard Renouf commented: "I said at the first meeting of [the HCS Board] that our role was to hold the department to account for its ambition to create a healthy island with safe, high quality, affordable care, that is accessible when and where our service users need it.
"The intention is that the Board will provide visible leadership to inform and create a greater understanding of the services provided by HCS, as well as an understanding of what we are striving to achieve and the risks we face.
"With this report, we are taking a significant step forward. For the first time in Jersey, islanders can see how we monitor quality and performance across HCS, where the stresses and strains are, and how we plan to overcome difficulties and improve performance.
"This demonstrates a culture change in HCS since I came into office. The organisation is now collecting much more data to measure the quality and responsiveness of our services, and to provide information to everyone using those services.
"HCS is large, complex organisation with a very wide scope of services, so at any one time, like any large organisation, parts of it will come under pressure and will struggle to maintain the high standards used to monitor quality and performance. Some indicators will show as amber or red. That need not create alarm but shows that we openly and transparently highlight the pressures faced by those services.
"Pressures might be due to internal or external factors, and this report allows the Board to investigate the reasons for those pressures, and understand what steps are being taken to manage and reduce them."
See Express tomorrow for an in-depth exploration of the report, and follow across the week for more analysis…
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