The revelation has been met with disappointment from Deputy Gavin St Pier, who submitted a series of questions to the Committee for Health and Social Care about the review.
The review will be carried out by Royal College of Paediatric and Child Health (RCPCH).
Deputy St Pier asked about the terms of the review, whether it’ll be published, and whether it’ll be informed by Sue Walters’ Learning Report.
You can read more about the Learning Report here, which was triggered after several families raised safeguarding concerns in the island.
In response Deputy St Pier’s questions, the President of HSC, Deputy Al Brouard, said the report wouldn’t be published but it would be informed by “lots of background information”.
Speaking specifically on the concerns that triggered the Learning Report and that have been consistently raised by Deputy St Pier, Deputy Brouard said: “The Committee will not direct the RCPCH to act outside of the normal process when considering the nature of complaints and compliments received. This is to ensure the integrity and independence of its findings.”
In not releasing the report, Deputy Brouard also said: “The recommendations of the report will be worked through in the normal way for service improvement. The report will not be published, as is standard practice with reviews of this nature.
“The instruction of the RCPCH to review the service means that it will be independent, and the Committee does not wish to fetter or unduly influence the standard process for the commissioning of such a review.”
Deputy St Pier, who continues to liaise with families who have safeguarding concerns in Guernsey, said he is disappointed in the responses he received:
“These are, frankly, a disappointing set of responses from HSC to my questions,” he said.
“Given the challenges the Committee know exist, they appear to be displaying a real lack of curiosity and enquiry by repeatedly deferring to ‘standard practice’ in their answers.
“This service review could be a real opportunity to ensure the patient’s voice is heard, which is good clinical practice and could help improve governance. The lack of transparency is concerning. Refusing, once again, to publish either the report or its recommendations is unjustified and does not build public confidence.
“Taxpayers are going to fund a report for which they can’t see the terms of reference, can’t input and can’t see the report or recommendations. I fear that standard practice means this service review will end up just being one group of clinicians chatting to another, without robust challenge and will serve little purpose, other than to be used to justify a case for additional resources.”
