Reciprocal health agreement claims (FOI)

​Request

A

How does the States of Jersey / Health Department currently communicate the right to reciprocal treatment overseas to the public as the information is not currently published on line and the means of making a claim is not standardised.

B

What was the total cost of claims made by Jersey residents for treatment under the various reciprocal Health agreements in the past five years, broken down by year and their nationality / their "home" country where the reciprocal agreement exists.

C

Please provide a breakdown of the number of patients treated by Jersey Health services as a result of our reciprocal health agreements in the past five years broken down by their nationality or  "home" country where the reciprocal agreement exists.

D

What was the total cost of treatment for patients treated in Jersey as a result of reciprocal health agreements in the past five years broken down by their nationality / their "home" country where the reciprocal agreement exists.

Response

A

Information regarding Health Agreements is communicated via the gov.je website at the following link:

Health agreements between Jersey and other countries

B

Reciprocal agreements do not utilise a claims process and there are no financial transactions between countries. Each Reciprocal Health Agreement may differ slightly but broadly they entitle visitors from a participating country to access care on the same basis as locals. As there are no claimable benefits, there are no claims and the concept of `cost of claims’ cannot be applied.

C and D

The Health and Community Services department holds information on all patients treated, however the way this information is recorded is not in a reportable format for the purposes of this request.

It is not possible to provide a response to this request as the process to extract and quality assure the requested information would exceed the 12.5 hour permitted timeframe for answering Freedom of Information requests. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

Article and regulation 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.