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An investigation is underway into the cause of a serious IT outage that left the hospital in "chaos" last week, with some doctors fearing for patient safety and A&E even forced to use a whiteboard to track their locations, Express has learned.
Health staff working on Friday said that the IT issue impacted the whole hospital, with several entire clinics cancelled as a result.
Staff claimed that some wards had no working computers, whilst others had to share one or two between whole teams of doctors and nurses.
Multiple senior doctors suggested that the Hospital should have declared a "critical incident" due to the severity of the IT issues, with staff in the Emergency Department reporting several patients waiting for beds.
At one point, staff were told the hospital was on "black" alert, with no beds.
Pictured: Staff working in the Emergency Department on Friday reported a number of patients waiting for beds.
A make-shift whiteboard had to be put up in A&E to show patient locations, as there was no other way to know without the IT system.
The situation was described by staff as "really unsafe", "high risk" and "chaos".
Several individuals said it posed a threat to patient life and safety, and that there should be an urgent investigation into something they felt should never have happened – and should not happen again.
On Friday, the Health department indicated that it was not possible to estimate the scale of the disruption, explaining that officials were instead focusing on attempts to resolve the matter.
However, the Government still did not response to questions about the nature and extent of the IT issue asked at the beginning of this week – despite confirming on social media that the issue had been "resolved" on Saturday.
The IT issue which affected @GovJsyHCS yesterday is resolved.
— Jersey Gov Health & Community Services (HCS) (@GovJsyHCS) February 24, 2024
All patients with appointments over the w/e and Monday should attend them as normal. Patients who were affected have been contacted. pic.twitter.com/32II3OBVYt
Express asked the Government on Monday to confirm the exact nature of the problem, what mitigations had been put in place to prevent this arising again, and whether any further investigation was ongoing.
In response, a one sentence statement was issued from Chris Bown, Interim Chief Officer for Health and Community Services.
Pictured: Chris Bown, Interim Chief Officer for Health and Community Services, said that there had been "no reports of patient harm".
It said: "As a result of the IT disruption last week business continuity procedures were stood up – as is standard practice when our systems become unavailable – to help to maintain patient safety and provide support to our clinical staff."
When Express put health staff's testimonies outlining their concerns around patient care and prescribing directly to Government in a further request for comment, Mr Bown said: “Our business continuity procedures enabled us to continue prescribing medication and maintain patient care despite the IT disruption.”
Half an hour later, he added: “We’ve had no reports of patient harm.”
Health Minister Tom Binet separately confirmed to Express on Tuesday that the matter was being taken “very seriously” and that an investigation was underway.
Slow progress in upgrading and digitising the island's healthcare systems has long been a subject of criticism.
Speaking before the island's business leaders at a Chamber of Commerce event the day before the outage, Digital Jersey CEO Tony Moretta said: "We... need to do something about Health. It's 2024 and by any measure we're still very analogue in this area."
He continued: "We launched our Digital Health strategy over seven years ago, developed by bringing together the Health Department, GPs, etc, but hardly any of it has been implemented.
"I'm sorry but that's not good enough.
"We need to do something about our health data and connectivity across not just HCS but the GPs and Family Nursing now. It's improving but too slowly and needs to be prioritised."
Are you a staff member or a patient who was impacted by the Health department's IT issues on Friday?
If so, please get in touch by emailing editor@bailiwickexpress.com or calling 01534 887740.
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