Hospital catering unit (FOI)

​Request

Please provide the following information regarding the construction and use of the General Hospital catering unit situated on the St Peter’s Village Industrial Park:

The Catering Unit

A

What was the budgeted cost of the construction of the new facility?

B

What was the budget overrun on this project?

C

What is the length of the lease on the building?

D

What are the restrictions on the use of the building?

E

Given that it has been completed for more than a year, what effect has this had on the warranty of the equipment within it?

F

How many people work in the building?

G

What is their shift pattern and hours of work?

H

Where is it proposed to park the cars and vehicles of those working in the unit?

I

What actions have been taken to ameliorate the concerns of families living in the estate next to the building?

J

Why was the intake for the ventilation of the building placed next to the outlet from the car paint shop immediately behind it that had been in operation for seven years by the time of the start of the construction of the catering unit?

K

What is being done to correct that situation?

L

At what cost to the States?

M

When will the unit open?

N

Will there be excess capacity in the catering unit and, if so, what will it be used for?

O

How will out of hours catering requirement in the General Hospital be met?

P

The private patient wards are used to having their own chef and bespoke menus. Will this continue when the new catering unit opens?

Q

If so, how?

R

How much of the catering equipment in the now closed kitchen at St Saviour’s Hospital been re-used in the new catering unit at St Peter’s?

S

What is the starting rental?

T

How often is the rent to be increased and by what criteria?

Response

A

The project budget formed part of the overall Enabling Works budget of £56m. The project working budget in 2018 was £5.014m.

B

The current forecast outturn cost is £5.137m, including contingency which may not be expended. The costs are contained within the overall Future Hospital enabling works budget allocation, as amended following cessation of the Future Hospital project.

C

21 years, which is the normal length to lease commercial / industrial premises on this basis.

D

The Technical Park has opening hours limited to 6am to 10pm. The catering unit is anticipated to operate between 8am and 5pm Monday to Friday. The Technical Park restrictions do not impact adversely on the operation of the unit.

E

The warranties are still valid.

F

No more than 25 on opening. When sandwich production and other catering related work streams are in operation, 28 to 30 staff. The building at full capacity could employ up to 40 people.

G

8am to 4pm Monday to Friday. In exceptional circumstances, eg, when there are a number of bank holidays in close proximity, work may take place on a weekend to maintain sufficient supplies of cooked food for patients and staff.

H

In the allocated parking places. Most of the catering team will car share and those who do not drive will be using public transport.

I

Presentation by the Future Hospital Project Team and Health and Community Services (HCS) to the Parishioners of St Peter at the Parish Hall prior to works commencing.

Liaison by Jersey Property Holdings representatives with residents both via email and telephone calls during the contracted works.

Liaison with Planning and Environment officers when issues were raised by residents. Attendance at St Peter’s Technical Park.

Stakeholders meeting held in the States Chambers Blampied Room to answer residents concerns as part of a formal complaints process.

J

This is a design issue and requires the mechanical and electrical designer (Hartigans consultant engineers) to comment on the location of air intakes and extract louvres throughout the catering unit.

K

This will be monitored as the process becomes operational and dealt with if it becomes a problem.

L

If it becomes a problem then the issue and costs will be discussed with the managing agents for the St Peter’s Technical Park and statutory regulating bodies.

M

The current programme is for all major remedial works to be completed by the end of February 2020, followed by a Health and Community Services department `soak test’. This is testing all systems with a typical production load to validate system behaviour under production use; fitting out; relocation of existing catering equipment and staff training; with the first full production day planned for 4 weeks post successful soak test.

N

The St Peter’s production unit has been designed intentionally to have unneeded capacity on opening. It is a Government of Jersey facility and not a Health and Community Services department facility. Once the unit is meeting the needs of HCS consistently and reliably, catering activity for other government departments will be considered as part of the core business of the unit.

O

As the production food would have already been distributed and delivered and in situ at the units, the teams on these sites will be responsible for all requirements, as they are now.

P

Yes.

Q

They have their own kitchen in their area.

R

None, as this was a satellite unit and only regeneration of the meals occurred there. Table tops, cutlery, china and trollies, and so on, were distributed amongst the other units for use. The regeneration oven was obsolete and not up to the new standard of operation. The unit at St Saviour’s Hospital has been closed for over ten years and HCS processes have moved on considerably in this period.

S

The business case states the rent as £121,000 per annum.

T

The rent will change as set out in the terms of the lease.