THE Ambulance Service will have its departmental responsibility switched move from Justice and Home Affairs to Health Care Jersey this summer.
Home Affairs Minister Mary Le Hegarat explained that the move had been agreed between herself and Health Minister Tom Binet.
“It’s expected to take place on the first of July. We’ve had the interim discussions about it, and we are all in agreement that it sits better under Health, where they were before,” she said.
Deputy Le Hegarat, who was speaking to the Justice and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel, said it was “no secret” that she had opposed moving the ambulance service to Justice and Home Affairs seven years ago.
“Even though it is a blue light service, it clearly is a health service and cares for the community,” she argued.
“I’ll make no bones about it, I was opposed. It doesn’t fit under Home Affairs because it has a blue light,” she said.
The decision comes after a difficult year for the Ambulance Service in which serious concerns have been raised about leadership, demand and capacity, funding and safety of staff.
While the service has been in the spotlight more recently following the Royal Court case of paramedics Tom Le Sauteur and John Sutherland, many say the issues extend back several years – and can, in part, be traced to the public sector-wide restructure of 2018.
The biggest restructure of the civil service in living memory, “OneGov” tore up several government departments and saw several new ones created – among them, Justice and Home Affairs, under which all the emergency services were to sit.
It was argued at the time that bringing the three – the Ambulance Service, States of Jersey Police and Fire Service – under one umbrella would lead to greater efficiency.
However, some insiders told the JEP that having the service sit outside of Health actually weakened co-ordination.
Justice and Home Affairs chief officer Kate Briden, who was also speaking at the Scrutiny Panel, said efforts were being made to ensure staff concerns are properly logged and addressed.
“One of the things that staff have been particularly concerned about is that where they use DATIX, which is the logging system… those concerns are properly registered, understood and actioned,” Ms Briden said.
The panel also heard that additional training is being planned for ambulance staff on de-escalation techniques through a licensed UK provider.
Work is also underway with a specialist facilitation to improve workplace culture.
