Deputy Oswald said committee members had recently undertaken a tour of sites on the existing HSC estate, which he said had highlighted ‘severe’ limitations.
He admitted he was surprised staff had chosen to carry on working for HSC because of the ‘rather decrepit’ state of some of the buildings, adding this reflected the skills of the team-building that had occurred and the leadership qualities of those in charge, for being able to obtain such a highly skilled workforce.
‘But clearly we need to move on to actually make the working environment as appropriate as possible.’
He said the Raymond Falla House project aimed to co-locate multiple community services which supported children and families onto a single site.
‘The benefits of this are to improve the experience for children and families receiving community health and care services, to provide access to multiple services in a single “fit for purpose” facility rather than across numerous sites and ageing buildings which are not designed for this purpose, and to exit four sites so they can be put up for sale or repurposed.’
The four sites that would close would be Lukis House in the Grange, Swissville and Le Carrefour in the Rohais and Perruque House near KEVII in Castel.
Plans to create a new community hub at Raymond Falla House were initially developed as part of the partnership of purpose plans under Deputy Heidi Soulsby’s HSC Committee back in 2017.
Deputy Oswald said that an outline business case was currently being finalised, while a policy letter would be brought before the Assembly seeking support for what he called a ‘substantive’ investment.
‘It is not possible to confirm a timeline for completion of this project, as this will be dependent on confirmation of the preferred design, approval of the outline business case and the availability of construction partners through the tender process.’
He added that questions regarding resources to finance and staff the building appropriately would be subject for further discussion, and would ‘probably’ be brought back to the Assembly.
Raymond Falla House, formerly the base for the Economic Development Committee and its predecessors, was closed as a States office in summer 2022. It was quickly, and briefly, repurposed as a Covid vaccination centre.
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