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New housing ringfenced for health staff at La Charroterie and Braye Lodge alone will not be enough to meet healthcare's future needs, according to the Health & Social Care President.
Existing on-site accommodation at the hospital is already filled and should the next phase of hospital redevelopment go ahead then the new facilities would demand 180 additional staff members, Deputy Al Brouard said.
The States have also purchased the former CI Tyres site down the road with plans to build 54 one-bedroom flats, also for key workers, predominantly health staff.
Speaking at the site to Express, Deputy Brouard said the likelihood of at least 74 new housing units for health staff coming forward in the coming years is welcomed but doesn't diminish desires to build more accommodation, including on the field next to the hospital and Duchess of Kent house.
“The way that Brexit has changed everything, the Ukraine war and then covid as well, people have reassessed whether they're going to work in healthcare,” he said.
“We need to have the best offering we can and I think we can always offer people accommodation on the site.”
In a statement he said: “The provision of this much needed key worker accommodation in the vicinity of the hospital campus is one step, and combined with further steps to build essential accommodation on, or near, the PEH Campus, will help support our efforts to recruit the staff we need to deliver the island’s critical care services in the future."
Pictured: Policy & Resources has submitted an application citing an extraordinary need to bypass planning regulations to build 66 units for staff on a fiield adjacent to the PEH.
Deputy Peter Roffey, President of Employment & Social Security - the committee which oversees affordable and key worker housing - said the committee is continually on the lookout for more “appropriate sites in the area as and when they become available if there’s still a need".
“And when we're told there's a need for key worker housing we will consider anything that's a reasonable deal.”
He accepted that despite the purchase of the two sites by the States “what Health would probably tell you is that they need yet more units".
Building these new units solely for health staff would free up properties in the private purchase, rental and public housing sectors, he added.
“We have quite a few hospital staff at the moment renting or being put into other accommodation around the island. It's so much better if we can centralise some of those people around the hospital because those units will then get released into the local market and local people can have access to them.
“At the moment they are basically being tied up by key workers.”
Deputy Brouard said he thinks the Braye Lodge site lends itself “more to family accommodation rather than just flats,” but said a mixture of bedroom sizes is always needed.
“We have people from all over the world who very kindly come here and work for us. And whether that's a single person here for the short term or someone who's coming here with a family with children. So we do need a full blend and this adds another piece to that jigsaw,” he said.
States buy Braye Lodge site from MSG for healthcare housing
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