Comment: Hospital - when is the ‘Future’?

Wednesday 27 March 2019

"As project names go, 'Future Hospital' turns out to have been more prophetic than the team behind it could ever have imagined."

That's the view of Connect's newest columnist, Katherine Penhaligon, who knows every management speak phrase in the book. Each month, she'll be picking up the best examples and revealing what lies beneath...

This month, 'Future Hospital' is in her firing line...

"It must have seemed hopeful and forward-thinking when it was picked as the title that would be plastered on tendering documents, reports and have some funky modern, but (always a consideration for Government marketeers) not too expensive-looking fonts and artwork.

Pictured: "Future Hospital turns out to have been more prophetic than the team behind it could ever have imagined," according to Katherine.

As it turns out, 'Future Hospital' seems to have meant that it is something we may always be striving for, rather than something that is ever likely to become Present Hospital or Working Hospital or Hospital Suitable for the Treatment of Patients by Well-equipped and Well-resourced Staff.

It is faintly reminiscent of absolutely any idea anyone has over the future of Fort Regent – doomed to continue costing money without any great sense of purpose and eventually capable of little more than raising a generalised sigh that no longer even qualifies as despairing. And if you find it annoying, try working there.

Perhaps the danger in the naming was that it allowed people – and I mean all of us – to think that it was indeed something that we could all go on squabbling about ad-infinitum, without actually agreeing on a resolution.

Pictured: The current hospital caused a bit of stir in its own time.

As an aside, it is worth noting that our General Hospital (the granite block bit of it) also caused a similar stir when it was first mooted. It is difficult to decide whether it is depressing or merely inevitable that some 150 years on, pretty much the same arguments held up that build too, adding to the cost, frustration and pouting on all sides. Where was the best place, did we really need one, should it be that size and shape?

In the end, once the shouting was done, the answers to one and three were, “yeah, pretty much,” and to two, was “absolutely.”

If ever there was a team in Government that deserved a medal, it has to be the Future Hospital team. Stoic doesn’t come close to covering it. They have worked hard. They have done what was asked of them, over and over again despite such frequent moving of the goal posts that they could be forgiven for thinking that they were playing on a completely different pitch. They have engaged experts – you are kidding yourself if you think a hospital can be delivered by anything other than experts – and they have engaged with the public.

Pictured: Do we really need for more consultation?

And yet all the collective ‘we’ do is call for more consultation on something for which we have already been given all the flipping information we could possibly want. Don’t blame the Future Hospital team if you and I, and the bloke next door whose brother worked for Planning in 1983 and knows stuff, can’t agree on any of the options put in front of us.

We are all complicit in this. We all have an opinion, nearly always driven by emotional attachment rather than facts on access, future-proofing and the myriad of other elements that proper experts look at, on where a hospital should be built. It is human and debate is good; green space is important; the ‘will of the people’ is why we have politicians, but let’s face it, the result is not good decision-making. Or, in fact, any decision-making.

Be wary of talking about the Government of Jersey wasting money in this context because, essentially, any waste and duplication is an unintended consequence of our own desire to sway this debate towards what we think (without a solid base of evidence) is the best solution for building a hospital.

Pictured: "Politicians, in general, survive by making their decisions and saying things based on whether you’ll still love them in the morning."

A friend who was listening to the States debate which eventually kicked the current site off the board, had this to say: '[I am] disillusioned with the way politicians behave and how they base crucial decisions on anecdotes and feelings.'

No argument there, but they are acting on our behest, and from the feelings that they hear from their constituents. That’s us – all of us. Politicians, in general, survive by making their decisions and saying things based on whether you’ll still love them in the morning. That’s not really a criticism, it’s just how it works. 

It is easy to forget now, but the ‘current site’ was the least worst option once better (from an unemotional standpoint) options had been taken off the table. When an expert is asked to find ‘the best site for a hospital’ in a small location, that is precisely the brief they have to work to; not what would be the best location for a hospital in an ideal world and in a place which upsets absolutely no one and for which no compromises will have to be made – ever.

Pictured: Three cheers for the Future Hospital team!

So, here it is, three cheers for the Future Hospital team. One cheer for your hard work, one for keeping calm and carrying on and one for still believing – we hope.

May your Future Hospital become a Present and Correct One."

This column first appeared in Connect. Read the March edition by clicking here.