Negligence cases against HCJ last 5 years

​​​Request 727306044

Could you please advise the amount of negligence cases that have been filed against the health and social services department over the last 5 years? 

Please contrast this to the number of complaints made against the same department int he same time period?

How many of these negligence claims went to prosecution? 

Response

For the purpose of this response, the questions on medical negligence claims filed against the Department and those that went to prosecution are interpreted as requesting:

(a) the number of medical negligence claims where an Order of Justice has been served on the Minister for Health and Social Services; and

(b) the number of the above medical negligence claims that reached “trial” stage in the Royal Court.

In the 5-year period from 2020 to 2024, an Order of Justice has been served on the Minister for Health and Social Services in relation to 8 medical negligence claims. As numbers are small, with fewer than five claims received in any calendar year, a further breakdown cannot be provided as individual claims may be identifiable. Therefore, Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied to protect the privacy of individuals.

None of these claims have reached trial stage in the Royal Court.

Annual data for complaints received by Health and Care Jersey (formerly Health and Community Services), from 2020 to 2022 have been provided in a previous Freedom of Information request, published to www.gov.je in October 2023:

https://www.gov.je/government/freedomofinformation/pages/foi.aspx?ReportID=6811

Annual data for complaints received in 2023 and 2024 are available in the respective years’ Quality Accounts, available at the links below:

HCS Quality Account 2023.pdf​  (page 138)

Health and Care Jersey Quality Account 2024.pdf​  (page 155)

As information on annual complaints received by the Department is available elsewhere, Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Articles applied

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.

Article 25 - Personal information

​(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.​