Funding strategy for new hospital (FOI)

Request

For the hospital, the most recent costing estimate, being approximately £466 million.

A

Is there any document which sets out the detailed breakdown of that costing and the assumptions made?

B

If not, and commercial sensitivity (or similar reason) is cited for a breakdown of the costing, what assumptions were made to make up that costing?

C

Has any assessment been made of comparable costs of UK hospital builds, and if there are any documents or correspondence relating to those, can this be made public?

Response

A

A breakdown to the level possible without breaching commercial confidentiality is provided on page 6 of “Future Hospital Funding Strategy” (P.130/2016) available on the States Assembly website:

Future Hospital Funding Strategy

B

The hospital costing has been developed using established best practice for United Kingdom National Health Service Hospitals, ie the Health Premises Cost Guides. This guidance is available on the United Kingdom Government website:

Health Premises Cost Guides

C

Benchmarks of comparable costs of similar United Kingdom hospital builds have been undertaken, but this information remains commercially confidential. Some reasons as to why UK hospitals will differ from hospital construction costs for the Future Hospital have been set out as a Frequently Asked Question on the Future Hospital website:

Future Hospital FAQ

The public authority is refusing part of the request under Article 33 (Commercial Interests) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Exemptions applied

Article 33 – Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if

(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

Justification for exemption

In this instance, we believe that information relating to specific costings is commercially sensitive. Any disclosure would be likely to harm the commercial interests of the third party provider and the ability to negotiate future contracts with potential suppliers.