'A disgrace' - patient reacts to neurology report

A patient has said problems at Jersey's neurology department highlighted in an external report are a "disgrace".

The report from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said "many of the neurology team were working beyond their job plans" and had been reliant on a single consultant who had recently retired.

Sophie Reid, 37, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2024, said: "It's another department that's been left to go to pieces".

But Simon West, the medical director for Health and Care Jersey, described the report as "very positive", adding: "It's clear there's still more work to be done and lots for us to cover over the next year or so."

Reid said "processes weren't followed" when she experienced a delay in her diagnosis because she was not offered a CT scan after suffering a seizure at work.

She said: "It's not fair that we have to keep fighting to improve services. I'm actually starting to wonder whether it will actually happened in my lifetime."

She added: "I put a post on my Facebook and I tagged all of the people that I know who have brain tumours here and all of them basically reiterated exactly what I am saying".

RCP has issued a series of recommendations for improvements which include devising a plan to assess workforce requirements and evaluating the administrative support provided to the team.

West said an action plan was in place in response to the report and the department had already acted on two recommendations from RCP.

West said: "We've been ambitious and we're trying to deliver as much as we possibly can in the shortest period of time so that we can improve services for islanders."

"It really highlights the amount of work that has been absorbed by the department in the face of an ever-growing demand," he added.

"I would continue to review departments in the hospital because that's just normal so it's not so much that patients should be worried about the department being reviewed - I'd be worried if the department wasn't reviewed."

But Deputy Karen Wilson, a registered nurse, said she was concerned by issues raised in the review.

She said: "Clearly patients have been let down. The pace of the response is not what you would normally expect to see."

Wilson added: "It quite upsets me to see you know that staff are under pressure constantly and there is no response from an operational point of view to actually improve that in a timely way."

The government has said the recommendations are being incorporated into a medicine recovery plan which would be monitored monthly.

It said a recruitment process to hire a new consultant neurologist had started with interviews for the role scheduled to take place in March.

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