Young people moving from Children’s Services into adult social care are adding around £1 million to the Health Department’s costs each year, a senior official has revealed.

Health and Care Jersey’s finance and commercial director Hazel Cunningham told the Public Accounts Committee that the department had to absorb the cost of care placements when young people moved into adult services.

“Individuals transition into adult social care, but they do not have some sort of budget attached to them as individuals, so Health and Care Jersey will then have to pick up the cost of placements in terms of that transition,” she explained.

Referring to the moves from 2025 into 2026 and from 2026 into 2027, she said the additional costs were cumulative.

“I would say year on year it is an additional £1 million, so cumulatively it is an extra £1 million every year that comes with those high-cost places,” she said.

Ms Cunningham said the department tried to anticipate those pressures by working with Children’s Services to estimate how many young people would need adult care and what their placements would cost.

Complex care costs almost double

But the department is also facing a sharp rise in the cost of supporting adults whose care needs exceed level four under the long-term care scheme.

This is the additional care needed by people with particularly complex needs, beyond the support covered at that level of the scheme.

Ms Cunningham said spending on care above ‘level four’ had almost doubled, from approximately £9.3 million in 2021 to £18.5 million in 2025. It is expected to reach around £20 million in 2026.

Level four is the highest standard category under Jersey’s long-term care scheme, covering people who need intensive support, such as constant monitoring or round-the-clock supervision.

Some people have complex needs requiring additional care beyond that covered by the scheme’s highest level.

Bringing patients back to Jersey

The hearing also heard about plans to bring some patients receiving care in the UK back to Jersey.

Health chief officer Tom Walker said officials had identified patients whose rehabilitation could continue on-Island.

Doing so would require additional staff, but potentially offer better value for money.

“That has involved us taking a case to the States Employment Board to increase the workforce, because that means employing more people here to work on the rehabilitation and care needs of those patients currently in the UK,” said Mr Walker.

However, he stressed that returning to Jersey would not be possible for everyone.

“Of course, there are groups that cannot be repatriated, but we have found some who are essentially in rehabilitation that we could continue their rehabilitation care here,” he added.

Nearly £1 million for one placement

Mr Walker also warned that specialist mental-health placements outside Jersey were an area of growing financial pressure, with the Island dependent on UK providers and their charges.

He said court referrals into secure mental-health facilities could cost nearly £1 million for a single person, describing those decisions as being at the courts’ discretion rather than the Health Department’s.