Lumbar Punctures as an Outpaitient (FOI)

​Request

A

What is the current number of people waiting for a lumbar puncture as an outpatient procedure (i.e. not including LPs performed on inpatients as urgent/emergency)?

B

What is the current estimated waiting time to receive an appointment date?

C

How many outpatient lumbar punctures can be dealt with in one day?

D

How many WTE staff are employed to carry out these investigations?

E

How many hours are currently given to this investigation per day?

If private patients are also served by this department, please identify separately in the questions above

Response

A

There are currently 18 patients waiting for a diagnostic lumbar puncture.

B

There is currently no electronic waiting list specific to this procedure to periodically report median (average) waits experienced.

Diagnostic lumbar punctures are performed at Jersey General Hospital, owing to the lack of acute hospital service availability at the Edith Quenault Health and Wellbeing Centre. As such, demand on inpatient services impacts waiting times. 

Addressing this query would require speculation on future service availability and capacity, whereas Freedom of Information is a mechanism to enable access to information held in recorded form by a Scheduled Public Authority. Therefore, Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.

C

As a maximum, three diagnostic lumbar punctures could be carried out in one half-day session by a clinician, if they were exclusively allocated to this. On this basis, one clinician could perform a maximum of six lumbar punctures per day.

D

There are no members of staff who are employed solely to carry out lumbar punctures, nor with a dedicated allocation to do so. Procedures are carried out by appropriately trained and experienced staff as part of their clinical role.

E

There is no time allocated for this investigation in the outpatient environment. Diagnostic lumbar punctures may be carried out as part of an inpatient admission, or scheduled for attendance, as required.

Neurology Department clinicians do not undertake lumbar punctures for private patients at the Jersey General Hospital. 

Article applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.