By Christie Bailey

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ALMOST half-a-million pounds was spent in the first half of this year on dealing with the ongoing consequences of the rheumatology review.

A freedom-of-information request revealed that £1.3m was spent in 2023, a further £1m last year, and £492,500 from January to July this year – bringing the total spent on ‘Operation Crocus’ to over £2.8m.

The project was created in 2023 when the Royal College of Physicians wrote to Jersey’s medical director to recommend that a full audit of rheumatology patients should be carried out.

Operation Crocus was initially created and resourced to work on the findings and recommendations of the Royal College of Physicians report, which described the standard of care as “well below what the review team would consider acceptable” for a contemporary rheumatological service.

It later emerged that hundreds of patients were given powerful drugs they did not need or were misdiagnosed.

As of this month, the government had received over 40 letters of claim in relation to treatment provided by the rheumatology department, with five cases referred to the States police.

Last year, the Health Department was “developing an approach to legal matters” and hoped to make settlement offers by the end of 2024 – either on a case-by-case basis or by way of a general compensation scheme.

But in May it emerged that plans for any kind of group compensation scheme for rheumatology patients had been scrapped.