In brief: The Friends of the New Hospital group has called on Jersey’s government to release its construction contract with Bouygues UK, saying it cannot assess whether funding is adequate for the new healthcare facilities. The group has raised concerns about costs, staffing, and whether the Overdale hospital can function without supporting facilities at Kensington Place. It has made a formal submission to the Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel urging greater transparency.
What the Group Is Asking For
Friends of the New Hospital has told the Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel that the construction agreement signed with Bouygues UK in June has not been made public, leaving it unable to judge whether sufficient money has been set aside to deliver Jersey’s new healthcare facilities. According to Bailiwick Express, the group said it had heard the contract was worth approximately £560 million, but did not know the exact figure or what funding remained available for hospital equipment.
The group calculated that £569 million proposed for the New Healthcare Facilities Programme between 2027 and 2030, combined with £175 million already approved for 2026, would bring total expenditure to £744 million. However, it said the proposed Budget did not indicate how that money would be allocated across the remaining elements of the programme, which includes the Overdale hospital, progress on Kensington Place, and a health village at St Saviour.
Among the specific requests made to Scrutiny, the group asked for a redacted version of the construction agreement, a delivery plan, a workforce plan and budget, detailed design documents, and further information about Health and Care Jersey’s financial assumptions.
Unanswered Questions About the Programme
Beyond the contract itself, the group raised a pointed operational question: how will the acute hospital at Overdale function without the ambulatory facilities planned for Kensington Place, which are intended to support it? It noted that no comprehensive plan for Kensington Place or the St Saviour health village had been made publicly available, leaving considerable uncertainty about how services would work together in practice.
The submission also flagged that there had been no workforce report and insufficient information about the role of Kensington Place, raising concerns about whether preparations for opening the facilities were on track. The group asked Scrutiny to establish whether Health and Care Jersey’s financial forecasts included the costs of actually operating Overdale and the wider programme once built.
On the construction side, the group said it had been told Bouygues was due to take over the Overdale site at the end of October, with completion scheduled for 2030, but had not seen an official delivery timetable or schedule of works. It also raised concerns about construction workers, supply chains, currency fluctuations, borrowing costs, and inflationary pressures, noting it did not know how the contract dealt with any of these risks.
The Bigger Picture
The group was careful to frame its concerns in terms of outcomes rather than bricks and mortar. “There will only be benefits if the hospital is well designed, built and equipped and supported by the other parts of the programme,” it said in its submission. It added that “the essence of a good health outcome is not wholly dependent on buildings; they are simply enablers,” and stressed that staff, equipment, and leadership were equally essential, alongside patients having “quick access to medical help and speedy diagnosis and treatment.”
That is a reasonable and measured position, and it makes the lack of publicly available information all the more striking. Jersey’s new hospital project has had a troubled history, with years of delays, site changes, and political arguments consuming considerable time and public money before a spade went anywhere near the ground. The public, and the campaign group that has followed this saga closely, might reasonably expect a higher degree of transparency at this stage.
Source: Bailiwick Express
