Diagnoses of brain tumours

22

WQ.126/2019

WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES BY DEPUTY K.G. PAMPLIN OF ST. SAVIOUR

ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 26th FEBRUARY 2019

Question

Will the Minister advise how many patients were treated for a diagnosis of brain tumour (indicating the number of benign and malignant diagnoses) by a consultant, G.P., or at the General Hospital –

1. last year;
2. 5 years ago; and
3. 10 years ago?

Answer

It is only possible to count the number of times that people with such a diagnosis have been admitted to the hospital as an inpatient or day case, including admissions for chemotherapy. There may be patients who are under the care of the Oncology and Neurology teams who are not admitted, but are seen in clinics. Many patients with brain tumours will receive their treatment off-island. These are not included in the following analysis.

The presence of a brain tumour – whether benign or malignant – is always coded. The only way of being certain that the patient was being treated for this in a stay is to limit the analysis to primary diagnosis. It is noted that this excludes most cases where people have secondary tumours from another primary one (either where the primary is still present, or alongside other cancers). There will be patients with malignant brain tumours who are therefore excluded from the data below as these are secondary tumours.

As TrakCare was introduced in mid-2011, the earliest comparable analysis is therefore from 2012. Private patients have only been clinically coded since 2018 – they have therefore been excluded to maintain comparability.

All admissions to Jersey General Hospital are under the care of a consultant.