THE government has applied for permission to allow two ‘temporary’ operating theatres to stand for another decade because a new hospital has not been built.
The modular operating theatres were approved in 2013 to span ‘the ten-year time-frame that will cover the period until the anticipated major project for a new hospital facility for Jersey is realised’.
When the initial planning application to build the operating theatres was submitted in 2013, then-Assistant Treasury Minister Eddie Noel described it as ‘an interim solution for operating theatres’.
However, the revised planning application – which is dated 22 February 2023 – explains that the Health management team ‘realise the need to extend the life of the modular theatres for a further ten years’ owing to ‘the new long-term plan for our new hospital still [being] at a very early stage’.
The accompanying statement states that ‘the demands on the [Health] service for planned surgery are growing’, and explains that allowing the ‘temporary’ operating theatres to remain is ‘necessary to maintain capacity in order to meet the demands, and maintain or reduce waiting times’.
When planning permission was received in 2013, the two modular operating theatres were built in the Gloucester Street car park as part of the first phase of the project. This took the hospital’s theatre provision from four operating theatres to six.
Once this was completed, the second phase – which involved the refurbishment of the original four theatres – began and the works were completed in 2016.
The theatre provision upgrades also allowed the maternity service to be refurbished and developed.
Looking ahead to the government’s New Healthcare Facilities programme, the recently released feasibility study outlines plans for five in-patient operating theatres at the Overdale site, as well as two day-case operating theatres and two minor surgery operating theatres at the outpatient site at Kensington Place.
