A damning report which found that Jersey may not be able to afford to build and operate its new hospital is likely to cause “unnecessary concern” – but should not slow progress of the delivery of the island’s new healthcare facilities, the Health Minister has said.
The Hospital Review Panel today published a critical 117-page report following a review of the Government’s New Healthcare Facilities Programme, which involves building over several sites.
This includes the island’s new £710 million hospital at Overdale, for which a planning application was approved last week.
The report slammed the lack of clarity and transparency about the decision-making that has informed the plans, and an absence of workforce and procurement planning.
As a result, the panel raised concerns that the island “may not be able to afford to build and operate the enlarged healthcare estate that is currently envisaged”.
The report casts serious doubts over the short- and long-term financing of the project, with financial oversight labelled “very weak and limited”.
Panel Chair Deputy Jonathan Renouf said the outline business case for the scheme “does not come close to meeting the standard that islanders have a right to expect for the largest capital project in the island’s history”.
Other issues in the report included a need for more detail regarding other aspects of the programme, such as plans for a health village in St Saviour and a new ambulatory care facility at Kensington Place.
In response, Deputy Tom Binet said it the report “is likely to cause a good deal of unnecessary concern”.
He continued: “For the avoidance of doubt, there is nothing in it to suggest that progress towards the delivery of New Healthcare Facilities should be slowed and I am confident that the team will be able to address all the key findings and recommendations and assuage any public misgivings.
“Even the Chair of the Panel himself says that they are not saying the new healthcare facilities will fail to meet the needs of islanders or that they are definitely unaffordable.”
The Health Minister pledged to study the report “carefully” in the coming days and “respond to the findings and recommendations as soon as possible”.
Deputy Binet added: “Everyone knows the new Acute Hospital at Overdale and other healthcare facilities are desperately needed, and having worked with the highly competent delivery team for almost three years, I’m satisfied that sufficient information has been generated in this specific, Jersey context to justify the expenditure, and that the Outline Business Case will be refined to a Full Business Case in the same, appropriate way.”