Watchdog for major health reform still not set up

Friday 20 August 2021

Recruitment for an independent board tasked with keeping an eye on a major shake-up to Jersey’s health service that will cost nearly £700m over the next 15 years still hasn’t started, nearly 10 months after the reform was approved.

The Jersey Care Model (JCM) - a new model for healthcare on the island, which will place an emphasis on treatment in the community - was voted through by States Members in November 2020.

While getting it in place will cost £679m by 2036, the Health Department has said it expects that the reform will result in savings of £874m by 2036.

Ahead of the key vote on the JCM, a panel of politicians tasked with reviewing the proposals slammed the Model for having “insufficient pace and rigour” in a critical report.

In an amendment to the JCM plan, which was backed by a majority of States Members, they argued that an independent non-executive board should be set up to hold executives to account for the delivery of the Care Model.

They said this group should produce monthly progress reports, and publish a detailed analysis of progress against targets set for the first phase of the JCM's delivery at the end of 2021.

During a quarterly hearing with the Health Minister yesterday, the Panel's Chair, Deputy Mary Le Hegarat, enquired about the progress made on the establishment and recruitment of the board.

Pictured: Deputy Mary Le Hegarat chairs the Health Scrutiny Panel.

Steve Graham, the Associate Director for People Services, revealed that no appointment had been made, nearly 10 months after the proposition.

He said the Government had appointed Hunter Healthcare, an external recruitment agency, to help with the recruitment.

“They provided the timetable through which they will work to get the chair of the Independent Oversight Board and also the chair of the Partnership Group,” he said. “Their micro-site will go live next week with the intention that by the middle to end of Autumn we will have recruited into those posts and then the chair of the Independent Oversight Board will take on the role for recruiting to the non-executive roles as well.”

Deputy Le Hegarat queried whether the post would be filled with local candidates, stressing that people with “inside knowledge of healthcare” on the board would be important. Mr Graham said Hunter Healthcare had been asked “to look far and wide” to bring a long list of suitable candidates.

“They are experienced in recruiting into other island jurisdictions so we believe in terms of diversity we will be able to deliver what we require,” he said.

Pictured: The key facets of the Jersey Care Model. (GoJ)

Deputy Kevin Pamplin, who also sits on the Panel, suggested the establishment of the board had “slipped” and the members of the board would be under “immense pressure” to reach the deadlines to produce their key report, noting that the States Assembly would have expected the board to be set up now.

Mr Graham said that the recruitment process, which included “setting up the organisation that could take it on”, getting a recruitment panel together, making a decision on which agency to use and creating the content to go out, had been impacted by the pandemic and was a couple of weeks behind where it should be.

However, he assured that it was “certainly the intention” that the board would have enough time to write their report before the end of the year.

“The timetable that Hunter Healthcare have given us it’s a generous timetable and you can anticipate there could be time gathered as we go through it depending on how candidates come forward and gathering time in a terms of when interviews take place and turnaround and things like that,” Mr Graham said. “The dates quoted are the last possible dates, the anticipation is that it will be earlier than that.”

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