The Future Hospital Review Panel has published its review of the outline business case and funding for the proposed hospital at Overdale, in which it highlights 29 key findings and nine recommendations centred on the viability of the costs and size of the proposed project.
The review comes after the panel lodged an amendment calling for the total budget of the hospital project to be reduced from £804m to £550m, with a maximum cap of £400m on borrowing.
Senator Kristina Moore, who chairs the review panel, said there were numerous holes in the existing project which needed to be addressed.
The panel said there was limited information on future running costs, facilities management information and workforce planning strategies, which they argued undermined the credibility of the budget proposal and funding solution.
The panel said that one of its advisers, Currie & Brown, felt the ‘business case does not provide the evidence needed to justify the scale of the project as it is currently outlined’.
A second adviser, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, said: ‘Given the sheer scale of the new-hospital-related capital expenditure, relative to the size of the public-service expenditure and tax-raising capability in the Island, a legitimate question arises: Are the anticipated benefits of this scale of project greater than the funding risks and associated impacts on other parts of public services within Jersey?’
Senator Moore added: ‘The opinion which has been expressed repeatedly to this panel is that £804m is just too much money. That Jersey needs a new hospital is not in doubt but it should not be at any cost.’
