St Saviour's Hospital ward closures (FOI)

Request

A

What date were the Oak and Maple wards at St Saviour's hospital closed please?

B

How many patients were in those wards when they closed?

C

Where were those patients sent?

D

Were the families of the patients consulted before this decision was made?

E

What was the rationale given for the closure?

F

Who made the decision to close them? If a board or panel - who were the members of the panel? - Names please

G

Who signed off this decision?

H

Was the Health Minister at the time (Deputy Richard Renouf) consulted?

Response

A

The final patient was discharged from Maple Ward on 30 November 2020. 

The final patient was discharged from Oak ward on 01 December 2020.

B

Prior to closure commencing, there were five patients on Maple Ward and seven patients on Oak Ward.

C

All patients had an updated assessment of their care needs in order to ensure they were placed appropriately.

Patients were moved to Beech Ward if they were identified as having an ongoing health need that required inpatient care within a ward setting, or if they were detained under Mental Health Legislation.

A significant number of patients were identified as needing either dementia focussed residential care or general nursing home care, and were therefore moved to placements within these settings. This included the majority of people who were moved to new community capacity identified through an independent provider (LV Group), who made changes to their capacity and registration status at St Joseph’s Residential and Nursing Home in order to help meet the needs of this specific client group.

D

Yes, where applicable, families of the patients involved were engaged. This process was referenced by the then Assistant Minister for Health and Social Services, and the then Health and Community Services (HCS) Group Managing Director in the Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel Quarterly Hearing of 29 October 2020:

Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel Quarterly Hearing.pdf (statesassembly.gov.je)

As the information is accessible by other means, Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

E

The initial decision to close Oak Ward and Maple Ward was driven by the need to relocate the dementia assessment unit (Beech Ward) to Rosewood House, in order to both commence the refurbishment of Clinique Pinel and facilitate refurbishment work at Rosewood House.

However, it also allowed for people to move from hospital care to a community based placement when their care needs assessment demonstrated that this was the type of placement that they required, rather than ongoing hospital care within a ward environment. At the time, it was noted that this was consistent with the direction of future care model planning (referred to as the Jersey Care Model) that had been set out by HCS and the then Minister for Health and Social Services.

F

The proposal was initially made by the Mental Health Care Group leadership team, which included the Associate Medical Director for Mental Health, the Associate Managing Director for Mental Health and the General Manager. The final decision was made by the HCS Executive Team, and was supported by the Minister for Health and Social Services.

Employee names constitute their personal data. Government of Jersey employees below Tiers 1 and 2 are protected from identification for the purposes of Freedom of Information disclosure, and therefore, Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied. The roles held by all individuals have been supplied.

Deputy Richard Renouf - Minister for Health and Social Services

HCS Executive Team

Caroline Landon - Director General

Robert Sainsbury - Group Managing Director

Dr Patrick Armstrong - Medical Director

Rose Naylor - Chief Nurse

Mental Health Care Group

Associate Medical Director for Mental Health

Associate Managing Director for Mental Health

General Manager, Mental Health

G

Please see response to question F.

H

Yes, as evidenced by this being discussed in the Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel Quarterly Hearing of 29 October 2020 (referenced in response to Question 4), at which the Minister for Health and Social Services was present.

Articles applied

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.

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(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 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.