The official version of this document can be found via the PDF button.
The below content has been automatically generated from the original PDF and some formatting may have been lost, therefore it should not be relied upon to extract citations or propose amendments.
WQ.388/2021
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE ASSISTANT CHIEF MINISTER BY DEPUTY M.R. HIGGINS OF ST. HELIER
QUESTION SUBMITTED ON TUESDAY 28thSEPTEMBER 2021
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 5th OCTOBER 2021
Question
Will the Assistant Chief Minister advise Members why the decision was made to allocate private inpatients, administrators and clinicians to the top floor of the proposed hospital, and explain how this represents the best use of the building for the Island's taxpayers?
Answer
Learning from COVID has suggested that it is prudent to create a separate space that can function as a hospital within a hospital in the event of an emergency or a future pandemic. Clinical advice has led to the decision to locate this on a separate floor above the rest of the hospital to enable it to remain self- contained as this would allow the rest of the hospital to continue to continue to operate as normally as possible during times of emergency or in the event of a future pandemic. This will help to prevent cancellation of patient appointments and a subsequent backlog of work.
For this space to be viable, it needs to have a use outside times of emergency and so it is planned
to dedicate it to private patient work as this is work that would cease in times of emergency. In this way, the facility has potential to generate income by preventing private patient work going off Island, increasing the use of private health insurance by patients on Island and accommodating health tourism. The facility can also be used as an overflow for public patients at times of peak demand.
The design of the private patients' facility is derived from a change in the design of the inpatient wards in response to consultation with clinical staff. Based on a nursing care model of 1:6 ratio, the wards have been reconfigured to 30 bed wards and will be on a single floor. The private patients' facility which
will provide 30 single en-suite rooms, will need therefore to be located on a separate floor. This was also a factor in the decision to locate private patient work separately. It should be noted that all patient accommodation has been designed to provide patients with attractive views.
The administration accommodation will house three categories of staff:
• Pure clinicians - for example, consultants, middle grade doctors, nurse
specialist, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists, nurse specialists and dieticians
• HCS managers, including clinical managers such as Chief Nurse, associated Chief Nurses and Medical Directors and the Chief Pharmacist
• Pure administrators, such as general managers and administrative assistants
The majority of occupants will be clinicians or clinical managers who have therefore requested that the administration accommodation is included within the main hospital building to allow them to move efficiently between clinical and administration tasks.
The total area of the administration accommodation is currently planned to be 2,017m² which is a small percentage of the overall square footage for the entire hospital. This space is being designed so that it can be repurposed into clinical space to respond to
• an emergency situation such as a pandemic
• increasing requirements in the future - for inpatients, outpatients or diagnostics.
Therefore, the administration space is planned to be located on the top floor with the private patients' facility by nature to provide the flexible future-proof space required to help ensure that Our Hospital can serve the Island for many years to come.