Health minister rejects hospital review findings
BBCMore than half of the recommendations from a review of plans for Jersey's new healthcare facilities have been rejected by the health minister.
Deputy Tom Binet thanked the Hospital Review Panel for issuing its report, published in February, but said it contained "inaccuracies and certain claims that may have caused unnecessary alarm for the public".
He has rejected 11 of the 20 recommendations, partially accepted seven and fully accepted two. Some of the rejected recommendations include calls for greater transparency regarding cost, funding and the project's value for money.
Review panel leader Jonathan Renouf said he rejected the criticisms and the panel used guidance from the minister.
'Completely unnecessary'
Binet said the 11 recommendations he rejected were "completely unnecessary", and the nine he has accepted were part of work that was already happening.
He said: "From an objective point of view, if there had been no scrutiny carried out on this at all, we'd be no worse off; we would have saved a lot of time... I don't think it has been a very useful exercise".
He criticised some of the professional assessment in the review and said it was carried out as if the plans for Jersey were "an NHS project, within the wider NHS context", instead of a local project.
Binet also responded to the panel's request for more information about the Kensington Place and St Saviour's Health Village sites, due to be completed after the acute hospital at Overdale.
He said he would be completely transparent about the cost and timing of those projects in future but he did not have the information yet.
"What we need is an acute hospital. The other two areas, we're just starting work on the planning of those," he said.
He said, given the current global economic climate, it was "common sense" to break the project down into different parts so the government could be in the position to stop work if money ran out.
Chair of the Hospital Review Panel Deputy Jonathan Renouf said he "totally rejects" the idea that the review was not appropriate or objective scrutiny.
He said it simply pointed out where the minister's own commitment to following UK guidelines was deficient.
He said the review commissioned experts to look at the business case for the hospital and they pointed out that it "didn't do a very good job" at following the guidance for major business projects, guidance the minister had said he was using.
Renouf said: "To me it feels a bit like the kid who says he's done his homework and then, when you point out he hasn't done his homework, says it was rubbish homework."
He acknowledged that people wanted to see the acute hospital at Overdale built but there was still a "desperate need" for an overarching health strategy to determine where it fitted in to a bigger picture.
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