Hospital bed availability and death numbers (FOI)

Request

Where my request says per day if that is not possible then per week or per month will suffice, but the more granular the better:

Can you provide data on the following please:

A

Number of deaths per day for the years 2000 to 2019 preferably to include the cause of death, for example respiratory disorder (10), cardiac (15) , suicide (2), accident (6), Cancer (23) and so on? I understand there may be some overlap where, for example, the person may have died from cardiac arrest brought on by Influenza or some other cause.

B

Number of deaths per day for the year 2020 to date preferably split to the cause of death, ie respiratory disorder, cardiac, suicide, accident, cancer, flu? Again, I understand there may be some overlap where, for example, the individual may have been infected with Covid-19 but died of cardiac arrest or cancer.

C

Number of hospital beds, excluding ICU, available and occupied per day 2000 to 2019?

D

Number of Hospital beds, excluding ICU, available and occupied per day 2020 to date?

E

Number of ICU beds available and occupied 2000 to 2019?

F

Number of ICU beds available and occupied 2020?

G

Number of Nurses and assistant staff employed 2010 to 2020?

H

Number of Doctors / Consultants employed 2010 to 2020?

Response

A and B

It is not possible to provide the level of detail required within the time restrictions of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

There are a number of other factors that would also impact on the information requested. To provide even monthly breakdowns of the granular information requested would likely release information that would identify individuals. Whilst the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 does not apply to individuals after death, Article 38 (Endangering the Health and Safety of individuals) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 would likely apply to any information that could identify individuals.

Substantial annual information is accessible within a recent Freedom of Information response, available at the following link:

Causes of Death (FOI

C to F

The electronic system for recording bed occupancy and availability was only introduced in 2012. Records prior to that time are not held in a format that can be extracted within the time frame allowed for Freedom of Information request responses. Information from 2012 onwards is provided below:

 *2020 Data up to 30 April 2020

The following data is from 1 January to 30 April annually, for true comparison to 2020 data:

G and H

The table below shows the average headcount in each staff group from January 2010 to March 2020.

Nurses and Midwives includes Healthcare Assistants, and both exclude zero-hour staff:

Articles applied 

Article 16 A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

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.

Article 38 Endangering the safety or health of individuals

Information is qualified exempt information if its disclosure would, or would be likely to –

(a) endanger the safety of an individual; or

(b) endanger the physical or mental health of an individual.

Public interest test

Whilst there may be public interest in causes of death, the granular detail requested could identify specific individuals – the release of such data negatively impacting living relatives or other connected individuals. It is considered that it would not be in the public interest to release the information, even if the extraction would not be time excessive.