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The Government has spent more than £3m in just two months on restarting the project to get Jersey a fit-for-purpose hospital, it has emerged.
The 'New Healthcare Facilities' project commenced in January 2023 after a £30,000 Government review – led by Infrastructure Minister Tom Binet – concluded that the previous 'Our Hospital' plan for an £800m health campus at Overdale should be scrapped in favour of a new multi-site solution.
Now, a response to a request made under the Freedom of Information Law has revealed that, by the end of February, £3.2m had already been spent on the project.
In comparison, a total of £83.8m was spent on the Our Hospital project between its inception in 2019 and its termination in 2022.
This works out as roughly £400,000 spent per month on the Our Hospital project, whereas expenditure on the New Healthcare Facilities project totals about £1.6m per month so far.
The FOI response also revealed that £9.8m of the Our Hospital project's total expenditure related to direct design and professional fees, broken down as follows:
| Design and Professional Fees | (£m) |
| Health Planner & Clinical Design Team | 1.4 |
| Project Management Office | 3.2 |
| Cost Management Consultants | 1.3 |
| Design Quality Assurance and NEC Supervisor | 1.4 |
| Property & Planning Fees Consultants | 2.5 |
| Total costs | 9.8 |
Spending on the Our Hospital Project ended on 31 December 2022, with spending on the New Healthcare Facilities project commencing on 1 January 2023.
So far, £299,000 of the New Healthcare Facilities project spending is related to design and professional fees.
Under current plans, the island won't have a full suite of new healthcare facilities until 2031. Previously, the target completion date for a new health campus at Overdale was 2026.
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