Medical treatment in the UK (FOI)

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Request

A

For the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, how many people were sent to the UK for consultations and medical treatment?

B

For each year, what was the most expensive case of sending someone overseas to the UK for treatment?

C

For each year, what was the average cost of sending a patient overseas for treatment to the UK?

D

For the most expensive cases for those three years, why were they sent to the UK and how much would it have cost to treat them in Jersey?

Response

A

Please note that it is possible patients travelling to the UK for treatment may make several trips., eg, initial consultation, treatment and follow up.

It is estimated that to review the relevant patient records (15,386) to assess if this is the case would far exceed the time allowed under the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014.

B

* This figure is to the end of October 2019. The final costs for November will not be available until the end of January and for December it will be at the end of February.

C 

* This figure is the average to the end of October 2019.

D

Patients are only sent to the UK if we are unable to treat them on island. Being a district general hospital, there are limitations as to what specialised treatments can be offered locally. This is also true for UK district general hospitals requiring tertiary specialist care for their patients.

Costs for treating in Jersey is irrelevant if the specialist care is only available in large UK tertiary centres.

Article 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.