Covid-19 diagnosis and medications (FOI)

Request

How many individuals in hospital have been recorded as having Covid-19 between 1 February 2020 and the present date? If possible, please provide a breakdown as follows:

A

How many were there due to covid, and

B

How many of that number were on the ICU.

C

How many individuals with covid-19 were given (please provide a breakdown by month, if possible) any of the following medications whilst in hospital:

• Dexamethasone

• Remdesivir

• Hydroxychloroquine

• Synairgen

• Colchicine

Of the individuals given these drugs:

D

How many recovered?

E

How many passed away?

F

When were each of the above approved for use on covid-19 patients locally?

G

If any other drugs were approved for use on covid-19 patients, please provide details of these.

Response

A

From 1 February 2020 to 31 January 2021 there have been 121 patients admitted to the General Hospital who have a diagnosis of Covid-19 recorded on the clinical coding of their admission. It is noted that not all cases are yet fully coded and therefore this number may increase once clinical coding is complete. 

Of these, 69 patients had Covid-19 coded as primary diagnosis, which means their inpatient stay was most likely due to Covid-19.

These numbers include patients who have the following codes:

• ICD-10 code U07.1 - laboratory confirmed cases of Covid-19.

• ICD-10 code U07.2 - all other cases probable / presumed / suspected Covid-19 or cases treated as Covid-19 where laboratory tests were not performed, were inconclusive, or were negative but the patient was still clinically diagnosed with Covid-19.

• Note that until 25 March 2020 U07.1 was used to classify cases of confirmed / probable / presumed Covid-19 or cases treated as Covid-19, irrespective of whether this was laboratory confirmed or not.

B

From 1 February 2020 to 31 January 2020 there have been 24 patients treated in ICU who had either tested positive or were clinically diagnosed with Covid-19 and either tested negative or were not tested. Due to the issues highlighted above in relation to records as yet not coded, this number is a combination of the clinical coding data and the data relating to PCR tests. Until clinical coding is complete, analysis of whether all of these patients were in hospital due to Covid-19 is not possible.

C

Information is not held within the pharmacy to the level of detail requested as many of the drugs have other non-Covid uses. Also, they are issued to wards as stock and not to individual patients. Therefore a review of each individual’s medical records would need to be undertaken. It is estimated that this would exceed the time limit prescribed by Regulation under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. Therefore Article (16) has been applied.

D and E

Information would only be available within individual patients’ records. To review each case would exceed the time limit prescribed by Regulation. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law has been applied. 

F and G

As advised in answer to (C) above, the drugs listed are also prescribed for other non-Covid uses. The treatment guidelines for Covid-19 can be accessed publically via the following link, therefore Article (23) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Jersey Health and Community Services Guides

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 23 Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.