The customary of care of Jersey’s rheumatology service is “well below” what could be thought of acceptable, an unbiased evaluate says.

The evaluate, by the Royal College of Physicians’ (RCP), famous circumstances with “no evidence of clinical examination” and incorrect diagnoses “on occasions”.

Health and Community Services leaders, who printed the evaluate, apologised, saying folks “deserve better”.

They added that sufferers thought to have been harmed could be contacted.

Health and Community Services (HCS) has printed the RCP evaluate after it was commissioned following considerations raised in January 2022 by a junior physician.

In its evaluate, the RCP crew “found the standard of care to be well below what the review team would consider acceptable for a contemporary rheumatological service”.

The RCP evaluate additionally expanded on earlier criticism of the prescribing of biologic drugs, saying that “in many cases” their use was “out with both UK and European guidance”.

The RCP really helpful that HCS undertook an audit of sufferers on such medicine to make sure their prognosis was appropriate.

Chris Bown, chief HCS officer mentioned it was “a picture… that none of us at HCS could be proud of” and “the people of Jersey deserve better”.

He mentioned: “A number of patients have had changes to diagnoses or medications as a result of the work we have undertaken and it is inevitable that some of these patients will have been harmed clinically, emotionally and/or economically by their earlier diagnosis or treatment.

“We count on that, typically, the extent of hurt might be minor or negligible.

“But, of course, any level of harm is completely unacceptable and over the coming weeks we will be contacting any patient where we think harm may have been caused and we will be discussing with lawyers an appropriate approach to compensation.”