Released 30 May 2023
Request:
I am collecting evidence in relation to the end-of-life experiences of dying adults and wish submit the following questions to you under the Freedom of Information Act.
Q1. Are there any Specialist Palliative Care Units (SPCUs) within your Trust? If yes, please provide the name and address of these.
Q2. Please provide information on the following within your Trust between January 2017 and December 2022 (inclusive). Broken down by year if possible:
i. The number of suicides in SPCUs (by adults 18+)
ii. The number of attempted suicides in SPCUs (by adults 18+)
Q3. Please provide information on the following within your Trust between January 2017 and December 2022 (inclusive), excluding data provided in Q2. Broken down by year if possible:
i. The number of suicides in any hospital ward by patients receiving specialist palliative care (by adults 18+)
ii. The number of attempted suicides in any hospital ward by patients receiving specialist palliative care (by adults 18+)
Information disclosed:
1. No, as an acute hospital Trust we do not have Specialist Palliative Care Units (SPCUs).
2. Not applicable
3i. 0 (nil)
3ii. We are unable to confirm the number attempted suicides in any hospital ward by patients receiving specialist palliative care on the basis that this information is not held centrally. The Trust does not have an electronic patient record system that would facilitate this type of reporting. Whilst any attempted suicide is recorded in our Datix Incident management system this system does not contain information regarding the patient’s treatment. Information relevant to this would only be recorded within the individual patient notes. Any attempt to compile data in the format you are seeking would require the manual audit of all patients records for patients with a relevant Datix report to ascertain what treatment they were undergoing at the hospital, which would require an unreasonable level of staff resources to complete.
Section 12 provision [cost limit] of the FOIA is applicable.