Charity hits out at gov delays for complex needs unit

Tuesday 06 October 2020

“Systemic” issues within the Government’s property arm have repeatedly frustrated efforts to build a specialist care unit for islanders with complex needs, according to a local disability charity.

Charity Les Amis is the latest organisation to vent its frustration over its dealings with Jersey Property Holdings.

Last week, Express reported on the submission of Rouge Bouillon headteacher Russell Price, who told the committee that the primary school’s facilities were inadequate and poorly maintained by JPH. He also argued that the next-door vacant former police headquarters was an obvious site to expand into.

Now Les Amis Managing Director Shaun Findlay has shared his frustrations over the charity’s attempts to secure public land on which to build a nursing and complex needs care unit in a critical letter to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), a Scrutiny panel currently reviewing the management of the Government's £1bn property and asset portfolio.

In his letter to the PAC, he writes: “We have found over the last two years that the process we assumed to be simple was anything but."

Pictured: Les Amis want to build a nursing and complex care unit at the Philip Mourant Centre in Trinity.

He continued: “A location was identified adjacent to the current Philip Mourant Centre in Trinity and offered as an option by Jersey Property Holdings. The offer then changed to involve a 'developer’s obligation' to also build for the Health Department to use, who eventually categorically stated they did not want anything built on the site.  

“Over two years we have continued to endeavour to address confusion and changing potential conditions on our being granted the use of the land and to press for a commitment. 

“We have now just received written indication that JPH is committed to making a rather smaller site within the original area offered available to Les Amis 'subject to agreement on the terms of the contract for use'.

“We are at a loss why it has taken so long to achieve even this and sadly not very optimistic, given experience to date, as to how long it will take to reach ‘agreement on the terms’.”

Les Amis, one of Jersey’s largest charities, has long wanted to build a 24-bed specialist unit to provide nursing care to people with learning disabilities in response to the island’s changing age demographic and the fact that they are five times more likely to develop a dementia-type condition than those without such disabilities, and earlier too.

Pictured: Les Amis Managing Director Shaun Findlay.

It is willing to fund the £5m project but says it needs the help of the Government to provide a site. 

Mr Findlay told Express: “We thought this would be quite a straightforward process as our plans would not only assist the people we support but would benefit the wider public and enable more acceptable levels of equity in health care for those with learning disabilities.

“The problem seems to be systemic, with the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, which is why it’s right that Scrutiny are looking into the whole estate management process.

“Our experience so far seems to suggest that the Government just wants to kick the project into the long grass. Perhaps JPH are waiting for the new government building and hospital site to be finalised but the need for our nursing and complex needs unit doesn’t go away and the costs just continue to climb.”