Service closures and Covid-19 vaccination programme (FOI)

Request

A

Please itemise the departments and services (like Samares Ward and the dressings clinic) that closed during 2020 or were re-organised and outsourced and the dates of their closure / outsourcing.

B

How is the general public made aware of these and forthcoming changes to the services delivered through the General Hospital, other than finding this out through personal experience, ie how are these service changes communicated?

C

The Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: It is understood that GPs’ were offered the opportunity to deliver the Covid-19 vaccination to their patients:

(i) Given that GPs’ know their patients and vice versa, why, when they already deliver flu vaccines on behalf of HCS, was this relationship not recognised by HCS and the central facility at Fort Regents established?

(ii) Please set out the cost benefit analysis for the decision to deliver the Covid-19 vaccine centrally, rather than through GPs’.

Response

A

There were no departments or wards that were formally closed or outsourced during 2020.

In response to the changing circumstances as a result of the pandemic a number of service changes were made. Whilst some of those changes remain in place, no formal decision has been made to leave changed services as they currently are. During 2021 we will continue to review service provision and if it is deemed appropriate that permanent changes to any services are required then the appropriate formal consultation process will be enacted. Please see the following link to a previous FOI request relating to Samares Ward.

Samares Ward (FOI)

During the pandemic we have needed to act quickly to protect staff and patients and as a result changes to the location of care delivery and at times service reduction, where appropriate and safe, has been required.

To answer the request further, the data would need to be extracted from various sources and manipulated, aside from taking more than the prescribed 12.5 hours to do that work, the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 does not require a Scheduled Public Authority to manipulate data to provide a response.

B

Changes to service provision over 2020 has been via a number of channels. We use the media, television, newspaper and radio.

Many of our changes are communicated directly to our patients and their relatives face to face, by telephone or by letter.

Because of the requirement to act quickly due to quickly increasing Covid-19 numbers at times, we have not always been able to provide lengthy notice of change. Often changes have needed to be introduced with immediate effect. We recognise that if we were not working within a pandemic we would choose to do this in a much more structured way, providing greater notice of any changes required, but at times this has not been possible.

C

(i) HCS and the Government of Jersey recognise the relationship GPs have with patients. As part of the open tender process, all care providers on-island were invited to submit their tender for this work and their submissions were fully evaluated.

Following the tender process, the central facility at Fort Regent was established to deliver the programme.

(ii) We are bound by the strict requirements of the Public Finances Manual and its corresponding law when appointing professional services, including those relating to vaccination. You may recall that in 2020 we carried out a proportionate procurement process, and that a number of sectors including Primary Care groups took part in this.

The proposals from this process were reviewed, to ensure that value for money and our expenditure decision-making would withstand intense scrutiny. Safety and logistical challenges were also key considerations built into the process.

The resulting decision was that we would use Government of Jersey resources to deliver the vaccine to the target priority groups, and we have established the vaccine centre and mobile units, which are currently operating successfully. 

As the vaccination programme continues and as a matter of Policy we are unable to openly disclose commercially sensitive information.

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.

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.

Article 33 Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

Prejudice / public interest test

Article 33 (b) allows an authority to refuse a request for information where its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information). Whilst we accept that the public may have an interest in the value of tenders by the Government of Jersey we believe the tender values are commercially sensitive and that the release of this data could affect the negotiation of future contracts.