Give patients discharge letter as they leave - GP

Patients should be given a copy of their hospital discharge letter as soon as they leave, a Jersey GP has said, after a digital approach led to thousands of letters being delayed.

Earlier in July, the government revealed about 7,300 hospital letters, which are sent digitally, may not have been received by GPs due to a computer issue.

Dr Maitiu O Tuathail, from the Island Medical Centre, said from Friday GPs would start getting the missing letters in order of priority - for example patients who need medication changes or follow up tests.

The GP said it hoped the government and hospital would have a "really good learning outcome" from the situation and copy the UK in its approach.

"Going forward, anytime someone leaves either the ward or the emergency department, they're given a copy of their discharge order which would be much, much safer and would ensure this would never happen again," he said.

Discharge letters are used to tell a patient's GP why someone attended hospital, treatment they received, medicine details, and whether any follow-up care, tests or referrals are needed.

Previously, Health Minister Tom Binet said the issue was linked to third-party software which connect hospital and GP computer systems, but no data had been lost.

Binet said health department staff and GPs were working together to resolve the problem and apologised for any concern caused.

O Tuathail said some of the letters may not have reached GPs since February.

"That could potentially affect continuity of care between us, the hospital and patients and may mean that potentially we might not have been informed of medication changes or potential investigations that the hospital wanted us to carry out," he said.

He said GPs weren't aware of "any harm" that had come to anyone who hadn't had their information given via letters but said the hospital was looking into it.

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