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1240/5(6711)
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES BY DEPUTY G.P. SOUTHERN OF ST. HELIER
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 21st FEBRUARY 2012
Question
Will the Minister inform members what resource implications, if any, have been raised following the sudden death of a patient who was discharged from hospital on a Sunday afternoon in August last year and whether any such implications have been fully discussed by the hospital management team and at ministerial level?
Will the Minister assure members that the decision to proceed with the CSR spending decision HSS-S5 on Pharmacy services in the Annual Business Plan 2011 played no part in this unfortunate incident and does she consider that the "increased risk to the organisation" highlighted in the risk analysis of this measure conducted by her department is a risk worth taking?
Answer
The CSR spending decision HSS-S5 was "Pharmacy skill mix review and re-profile out of hours service to reduce cost of service".
Members can be reassured that the decision to proceed with the CSR spending decision HS-S5 on pharmacy services played absolutely no part in the incident referred to in the question.
The skill mix review, which also took advantage of voluntary redundancy, enabled a wider review of pharmacy service provision which actually resulted in an increase in the level of pharmacy service out of hours with the pharmacy department being open to the hospital on Sunday mornings, in addition to Saturday mornings, from January 2011.
There was no reduction in the pharmacy on-call service as a consequence and it remains the fact that a pharmacist is available on-call at all times that the pharmacy department is closed.
The potential "increased risk to the organisation" may have arisen if it had been necessary to reduce the level of out of hours service in order to meet the CSR target saving but, in the event, this was not necessary and so there was no increase in risk.
As mentioned, there has, in fact, been an increase in pharmacy service provision at the weekends since January 2011 as a direct consequence of the service review resulting from the CSR decision. There has been no reduction in any of the services provided by the pharmacy department at other times.
The inquest verdict made no criticism of the pharmacy service and no resource implications have been raised