Delayed discharges and charging policy

​Request 820167316​

1) For each of the last five years (2021-2025), how many adult patients at Jersey’s General Hospital have been medically fit to leave and stayed beyond their expected discharge date?

2) Please breakdown the reasons for any delayed discharges under each of these years, with the number of people the reason applies to, and how long they were delayed for. Please display any ranges (ie. 5-15 days) and indicate if any are active cases. Please also list the ages, or age ranges of these patients under each reason for each year.

3) Under HSC’s new rules to charge those overstaying their expected discharge date for no medical reason, how many people for each of the past five years (2021-2025) would have been in breach of this policy?​

Response

1 and 2

Information on the number of people experiencing a delayed transfer of care whilst waiting in hospital from November 2023 to December 2025 (inclusive) is available in a Freedom of Information response Monthly delayed discharges and cost implications (FOI) published to www.gov.je in​ June 2026​.

Data for the period from August 2022 through to October 2023 (inclusive) are available in a Freedom of Information response Numbers of delayed transfer of care since January 2021 (FOI)​ published to www.gov.je in December 2023.​

​Data for those experiencing a delay in discharge when medically fit to leave hospital in the period from December 2021 to July 2022 (inclusive) are available in a Freedom of Information response Jersey General Hospital delayed discharges (FOI) published to www.gov.je in September 2022.​

These responses include a breakdown of the data to show the reasons for the delays experienced, along with an explanation of the data limitations and changes in the Patient Administration System / Electronic Patient Record recording options which impact upon reporting capabilities.

Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied in respect of the information available elsewhere.

Data for patients recorded as medically fit for discharge from Jersey General Hospital where their discharge was delayed by reason other than unavailability of appropriate ongoing care, from November to December 2023, and annually for 2024 and 2025, are detailed in Table1 below. 

The figures represent the total number of unique individuals delayed in the respective time period, according to the reason for delay recorded. Data for delayed bed-days recorded for the period from November 2023 to December 2025.are also provided; these figures give the cumulative number of delayed hospital bed-days attributable to those patients, by reason for delay, in the respective time period.

Information has been derived from historic operational discharge tracking spreadsheets. These records were not originally designed for retrospective statistical reporting, and contain free-text entries. Recorded reasons for delay reflect the single primary reason selected contemporaneously within the ‘medically fit for discharge’ category field, which may not fully capture complex discharge circumstances, such as prolonged delays involving multiple contributing factors. 

It is not possible to report length of delay (delayed bed days) data for the full period from January 2021; historic delayed transfer data extracted from the Electronic Patient Record systems during and around the system transition period did not consistently capture or retain both the date of medical fitness and date of discharge in a structured format. As a result, delayed bed day calculations are not held in a central record and cannot be reconstructed for periods prior to the introduction of the operational discharge tracking records.​

Owing to small numbers, breakdowns of the demographic data requested are not provided, as there is potential for individuals to be identifiable, and Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied to protect the privacy of individuals.

Table 1: Medically fit for discharge data November 2023 to December 2025.

3​

In cases where a patient declines an offered care home placement, the reason for the delay may be categorised under the care capacity reason (for example, awaiting residential placement) where that remains the dominant operational blocker, with the element of choice documented within free-text comments only. While associated additional comments fields may contain extensive narrative detail, including references to patient or family choice, these are not available to report directly from the central record system and performing analysis of records to identify such detail would exceed the timescales prescribed in the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014. Therefore, Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied in this respect.

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.

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 2 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 2005.

(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.