Delayed mental health facility now £800k over budget

Wednesday 23 November 2022

The completion date for a new acute adult mental health facility has been pushed back again, and is now expected to go more than £800,000 over budget, it has emerged.

Health Minister Karen Wilson confirmed yesterday that the £7.3m project to redevelop Clinique Pinel in St. Saviour, replacing Orchard House and providing 26 new ensuite bedrooms and other facilities, is now not expected to be complete until March 2023.

The project, which came in the wake of a critical mental health service review, was launched in 2020 and originally due for completion at the end of January 2022, but has been plagued by delays.

It was firstly pushed back until March 2022, with Ministers blaming bad weather delaying construction, then until April, and then until September this year as an apparent result of labour shortages due to a 'building boom'.

While residents moved into 14 new ensuite bedrooms at Clinique Pinel in mid-September, and extensions to Rosewood House should be completed by the end of this month, the rest of the work on the facility will not be completed until next year, Deputy Wilson explained following a written question from Deputy Mary Le Hegarat. 

“The final phase completion and handover of Clinique Pinel reported currently by the contractors is 15 March 2023, factoring in risk assessment the final movement of services is anticipated for April 2023.”

She also explained that, due to “a number of additions to the project to address identified legacy defects”, the Project Manager was now “predicting an overspend of £836,000”. 

The draft Government Plan has an additional £300,000 of funding for the project.

However, even if the additional spending is approved when States Members vote on the Government Plan next month, there will still be a “shortfall of circa £536,000”, the Health Minister said.

The Clinique Pinel upgrades were originally intended as an interim option while the new hospital was being built.

It was previously envisaged that all mental health services would move to a separate mental health centre built on a field next to the Overdale health ‘campus’ which was due to open in 2026.

Pictured: The £800m Overdale hospital plans included a separate mental health unit to the north-east of the Westmount campus.

However, the new Government has since ruled the Overdale project to be unaffordable and has instead suggested that the island continues operating its health services from multiple sites.

Infrastructure Minister Deputy Tom Binet is currently conducting a separate review on the island’s mental health provision, which will consider which site(s) services should be delivered from in future.