06 January 2010
Health and Social Services has conducted a consultation on the proposed Regulation of Care Law to gauge the opinions of those who may be affected by the changes.
Those consulted included nursing and residential home owners, managers and services users, and professional care teams both within and outside of Health and Social Services and General Practitioners.
The Regulation of Care Law will ensure that facilities where patients and clients receive care or treatment are regulated and meet approved standards. This will apply to all facilities, whether within Health and Social Services, or the community.
In summary, 90% of respondents agreed that nursing and residential care should be regulated, with a similar number agreeing that domiciliary and home nursing care should also be regulated.
In addition, more than 75% agreed that acute hospital care and all facilities undertaking minor surgery should be regulated.
An overwhelming majority believed that regulation should be through independent or external agencies with specialist knowledge and that reports should be made public.
Following the consultation, the Minister for Health and Social Services endorsed a number of elements as policy for the future regulation of health and social care in Jersey and these include:
- the regulation of care homes, nursing homes, domiciliary care, minor surgery and acute hospital facilities
- the regulation of States of Jersey facilities currently exempt from inspection
- independent regulation
- inspection reports to be made public
To further develop the legislation, a stakeholder steering group will be formed including representatives from providers, voluntary sector, service users and other relevant bodies to maintain dialogue and assist with standard setting during the law drafting stages and beyond.
You can get copies of the report from the Health Protection Service at Le Bas Centre.
Additional Information:
1. All care homes operated by the Parishes, Private and Voluntary organisations in Jersey are regulated by the Minister for Health and Social Services under the Nursing and Residential Homes (Jersey) Law 1994, the Residential Homes (General Provisions)(Jersey)Order 1995 and the Nursing and Mental Nursing Homes (General Provisions)(Jersey)Order 1995.
2. Nursing Agencies are licensed and regulated by the Minister for Health and Social Services under the Nursing Agencies (Jersey) Law 1978. There is currently no regulation of non nursing domiciliary care.
3. The existing legislation specifically exempts any service or facility operated by Health and Social Services or any other States department from regulation
4. In May 2006 the Council of Ministers accepted that the current legislation for regulating health and social care in Jersey was no longer fit for purpose. Consequently it does not adequately protect the most vulnerable in society and is insufficient to ensure safe standards of practice in health care services. In response to this the Council of Ministers approved the drafting of a new Regulation of Care Law.
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