Eating disorders (FOI)

Request

I would like to ask Health:
(breakdown of figures annually 2010-2014)

A

Number of girls under 18 who have been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa

B

Number of boys under 18 who have been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa

C

Number of adult females (over 18) diagnosed with anorexia nervosa

D

Number of adult males (over 18) diagnosed with anorexia nervosa

E

Number of girls under 18 who have been diagnosed with bulimia

F

Number of boys under 18 who have been diagnosed with bulimia

G

Number of adult females (over 18) diagnosed with bulimia

H

Number of adult males (over 18) diagnosed with bulimia

I

Number of referrals to psychiatric service with regard to eating disorders (broken down to adults/under 18)

J

Number of hospital admissions with regard to eating disorders (broken down to adults/under 18)

Response

A to H

Health and Social Services (HSSD) does not have a central point of referral for patients with these types of conditions. They could be referred to different departments depending on the patient's GP and assessment of their clinical needs. Also, a person may be referred to multiple departments by their GP. HSSD does not have access to GP records. To locate all patients and/or clients with the diagnosis of anorexia nervosa and bulimia would exceed the 12.5 hour limit under the Law (See exemptions below).

Patients may be referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) who assist clients with eating disorders, the Paediatric Consultants (if under 18) or the Dieticians. These departments do not routinely collate statistics on eating disorders and to do so would require a manual trawl through individual client records. This would require excessive administrative time.

There is also the Eating Disorders Service as part of Adult Mental Health Services. Please see response to I.

I

Psychiatric referrals for clients under 18 would go to CAMHS so figures are unavailable as explained above. Figures for Adults (18-64) across 2010-2014 are provided. A further breakdown will not be provided as this could allow identification of individuals and is exempt under Article 25 of the Freedom of Information Law.

Female Anorexia Nervosa - 15
Male Anorexia Nervosa - <5
Female Bulimia - 23
Male Bulimia - 5

J

Information is available from June 2011 following the introduction of the TrakCare patient administration system. Between June 2011 and December 2014 there were 5 people admitted to hospital with Bulimia or Anorexia Nervosa as a primary diagnosis. A further breakdown will not be provided as this could allow identification of individuals and is exempt under Article 25 of the Freedom of Information Law. Figures are provided below for hospital admissions with Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia or ‘Other Eating Disorder’ as a primary OR secondary diagnosis. This does not necessarily mean that the patient was admitted because of an eating disorder and some patients may have been admitted more than once in a year.

Teenagers 13-19

2011: <5 (From July)
2012: 0
2013: 5
2014: 7

Adults 20+

 2011: <5 (From July)
 2012: 14
 2013: 16
 2014: 8

Exemptions

Article 25 (2) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011

(2)    Information is absolutely exempt information if –
(a)     it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005; and
(b)     its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.