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WQ.457/2021
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES BY DEPUTY J.M. MAÇON OF ST. SAVIOUR
QUESTION SUBMITTED ON MONDAY 15TH NOVEMBER 2021
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 22ND NOVEMBER 2021
Question
Will the Minister advise –
- what systems, if any, are in place in Jersey to record patients' adverse reactions, deaths or Covid- 19 infection rates following any of the Covid-19 vaccinations; and, if no such systems are in place, provide an explanation as to why not; and
- whether any section of his Department analyses morbidity and mortality treads in Jersey and, if so, are Covid-19 vaccinations included as part of this analysis?
Answer
- The Yellow Card scheme run by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is the UK system for collecting and monitoring information on safety concerns such as suspected side effects or adverse incidents involving medicines and medical devices. The scheme relies on voluntary reporting by health professionals and the public, including patients, carers and parents. There is a dedicated Coronavirus Yellow Card reporting site:
www.Coronavirus-yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk
During the pandemic, all HCS staff were reminded about the Yellow Card system. They would also record any information on the internal Datix system. Information on the Yellow Card system is included on the patient information leaflet distributed at the time of vaccination. Details are also on the GOJ vaccination website at: www.gov.je/Health/Coronavirus/Vaccine/Pages/COVID19VaccineInformation.aspx#anchor-3
The MHRA receives all reported events that may be related to medicines including vaccines from a population of some 70 million people. It analyses these events to determine if they are in fact related to the drug in question or not, determine the frequency of any related events and pursue any mechanisms. It then reports the perceived side effects. The picture drawn by this data both in terms of type and frequency of adverse event is applicable to our population. We cannot extract Jersey-only data from this, but have access to robustly collected and analysed data that is applicable to our population. Such data is more meaningful than data only derived from only a small cohort and our ability to analyse a causative link is much more limited than that available to the MHRA. When recording COVID infection rates we also record the COVID vaccination status of an individual.
- Mortality and morbidity trends are analysed by the Public Health Intelligence Team, part of the Public Health Directorate within Strategic Policy, Performance and Population (SPPP). An annual mortality report is published by the team using data from death registrations and statistical coding conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The latest report, for 2020 deaths, was published in September and is available on gov.je. Included in the latest report is analysis of COVID-19 deaths and deaths of those who had previously tested positive.
There have been no deaths registered in Jersey to date where COVID-19 vaccination was listed as a cause of death on the death certificate.
Morbidity trends are analysed as part of the multi-morbidity report, published every two years, by the Public Health Intelligence Team. This uses data collected from GPs as part of the Jersey Quality Improvement Framework (JQIF) for which GP practices are incentivised to record accurate information. Vaccine status is not part of the JQIF indicator set and therefore not included within this analysis.
The next iteration of this report will be published in 2022.