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The terms of reference for an upcoming external review of the island's Neurology Department will not be published ahead of the review itself as “they can be subject to change” during the process, it has emerged.
It was recently confirmed that a Royal College of Physicians review of Jersey's Neurology Department is expected by the end of this year amid “ongoing issues and concerns” within the service.
The terms of reference for the review were agreed in April, according to a report presented in last week's meeting of the Health Advisory Board – an independent board responsible for overseeing Health's operations.
Pictured: Neurology is the branch of medicine concerned with the study and treatment of disorders of the nervous system, including the brain.
The terms of reference of a review define the objectives and the scope of the evaluation.
Express asked the Government to provide the specific terms of reference for the neurology review and confirm:
Why was this review commissioned?
What are the “ongoing issues and concerns within the [neurology] service”?
What is being done about these issues in the interim?
In response, Health and Community Services said: “The review requested from Royal College of Physicians is to review whole service.
"This is in order to understand where improvements can be made, which is standard practice and will advise as to how neurology services can be structured in future.
"The Terms of Reference would be published at time of publication of review as they can be subject to change during the review process.”
Proposals to develop neurology and neurosciences in Jersey were first outlined in a Medicine Improvement Plan established in November 2023.
One of the plan's recommendations was to "review neurology and neurosciences with the aim of improving the provision of medical expertise in this specialty, in particular the inpatient provision".
This was prompted by a "serious incident".
Pictured: Proposals to develop neurology and neurosciences in Jersey were outlined in a Medicine Improvement Plan established in November 2023.
An update on the progress of the Medicine Improvement Plan was presented to the Health Advisory Board last week.
It explained that a Royal College of Physicians review of neurology is due to take place in the third or fourth quarter of 2024.
It also confirmed that terms of reference for this review were agreed with the Royal College of Physicians on 10 April 2024.
A collation of neurology medical notes are to be sent to the Royal College prior to the review, according to the report.
It continued: "The upcoming review has been discussed with the neurology service on 3 June 2024.
"Following publication of report, to review the recommendations and develop an action plan for improvements.
"This recommendation has been confirmed to remain red due to ongoing issues and concerns within the service."
It comes after recent Royal College of Physicians reviews of rheumatology and radiology revealed serious concerns within both departments.
Pictured: Chief Officer of Health, Chris Bown with the Royal College of Physicians' review of Jersey's rheumatology department.
In September 2023, the Health Advisory Board also requested a review of General Surgical Acute on-call services. That review was due to be conducted by the Royal College of Surgeons, and take place in April 2024.
The terms of reference for the general surgical review were made available online by the Health Advisory Board in February 2024.
The terms – which were set in December 2023 – stated that the review aimed to ensure Jersey was following best practice, and confirmed that it wasn't in specific response to any patient safety concerns.
The terms said the process would involve selecting 20 general emergency surgical cases "at random", and that the "quality of staffing and team working within the department" would be assessed to see "whether this supports the delivery of high-quality and safe care".
Reviewers were specifically asked to look at morbidity and mortality meetings, as well as incident reporting, as well as answering the questions, "should we be looking at an emergency surgery model with less elective specialist work?" and, "how best to balance out emergency and elective activity?"
An independent review of Orthopaedic Surgery and Theatres was also due to be conducted in April.
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