PREPARATORY work for the construction of the Island’s new hospital is set to start within weeks, the government has confirmed, following the granting of planning permission for the £710 million project.
In the wake of the Planning Committee’s unanimous decision on Thursday to grant the application for the project at Overdale, next steps have been laid out.
Planning agreements that formed part of the consent are being drawn up, while “development works” are set to commence in the spring. The project team has confirmed that this phase will include installation of site hoardings, stripping of topsoil and tree protection, the removal of redundant utilities and a temporary access road for site traffic.
Work is also under way towards the appointment of a delivery partner for the scheme, with questionnaires for interested parties having been returned and an official tender process now under way ahead of the appointment by this autumn.
The intention is that construction will start by the end of 2025 and be completed by the end of 2028, although Health Minister Tom Binet has previously indicated that the opening of the new facility could be up to six months later as a result of the fitting-out of the building.
Deputy Binet hailed a “major milestone” in the long-running project.
“Securing planning approval brings us one step closer to ensuring construction of the acute facility remains on track to start this year,” he said.
“The procurement process for a delivery partner is now well under way, with parties who are very capable of building the acute hospital having expressed their interest.”
He added: “I recognise that, while this has been a good day for moving forward with the scheme, those neighbours living near to the scheme will inevitably be more impacted.
“I thank them for their patience so far with the demolition works that have taken place and the construction works that will follow. We will continue to work with them to ensure that we cause the least disruption possible.”
While there was relief in many quarters about the main planning hurdle for the project having been overcome, one observer has expressed concern about the scale of the current challenges facing the General Hospital.
Former consultant Dr David Ng, writing a Weekend Essay in today’s JEP (see page 14), lamented that £182m had been spent on the project by the end of 2023 and warned that future running costs for the Island’s healthcare system were likely to rise considerably.
Dr Ng said: “The building (capital) costs are just one part of the equation – the more significant costs are the running costs.
“These costs have not been publicly considered, and will be many times higher than the building cost, including the need for more healthcare professionals and duplication of equipment over multiple sites.”
Dr Ng said the Health Department needed to improve working conditions in a “breaking” service.
“We need to properly fund our health service and not penny-pinch,” he said. “We need more frontline workers and not [management] ‘clipboarders’ who add nothing to patient care.
“We need to listen to clinicians and support them when they can do their job better and safer with new technologies, rather than frustrate them to the point of resignation.
“Otherwise, we won’t have enough staff to provide healthcare in the new hospital – we barely have enough in our single-site crumbling hospital.”
