Private patients' prescriptions (2) (FOI)

​Request

An FOI about private patients' prescriptions published on 25 October 2024 revealed that HCS had so far identified 25 patients who have been prescribed treatment while under a consultant acting in a private capacity which were not flagged as private prescriptions, at a cost of £200,000.

1. Please provide an update as to how many patients have been identified to date, and the cost of this?

2. Please confirm how many of these prescriptions were prescribed by any of the doctors involved the Royal College of Physicians' review of the rheumatology department – called Dr X and Dr Y in the report?

3. Please provide an update as to how many medications have been identified to date, and which medications these are?

Response

1

The information contained in the Freedom of Information response of 25 October 2024, as linked below, is current. Therefore, Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Private Patient Prescriptions (FOI)​

2

None of the prescriptions were written by either Dr Y or Dr Z.

3

The information contained in the Freedom of Information response of 25 October 2024 is current. Therefore, Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

As detailed in the referenced response, the full extent of prescriptions in-scope and the value of these would only be identifiable through extensive review and interrogation of records, requiring reconciliation of all prescriptions received against patient care records to establish whether treatment was delivered as a public or private patient for each instance. 

As noted in the previous response, a Scheduled Public Authority is not required to create or manipulate data for the purpose of responding to Freedom of Information requests. Furthermore, the resource required to perform such analysis and reconciliation exceeds that prescribed in the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014. Therefore, Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

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.

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.​