{"id":597678,"date":"2025-11-27T18:49:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T18:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/597678\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T18:49:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T18:49:22","slug":"off-island-placements-drives-mental-health-department-overspends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/597678\/","title":{"rendered":"Off-island placements drives mental-health department overspends"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overspending within Jersey\u2019s mental-health service stood at more than \u00a33 million in both 2023 and 2024, it has emerged \u2013 with the cost of off-island care placements sometimes exceeding \u00a31,000 per day.<\/p>\n

The data was provided in response to a written question submitted to Health Minister Tom Binet by Deputy Jonathan Renouf, who is vice-chair of the Health and Social Security scrutiny panel.<\/p>\n

Deputy Renouf asked Deputy Binet to outline which areas of the Health Department had overspent in each of the past two years and by how much.<\/p>\n

His question comes in the wake of major scrutiny over the overall Health deficit<\/a><\/strong>, as well as plans to improve the department\u2019s financial position through the government\u2019s intended 2026-2029 Budget, with \u00a3381m of spending on healthcare next year \u2013 a rise of almost a fifth on 2024.<\/p>\n

Of the nine areas listed in the Minister\u2019s response, medical and surgical services exceeded their budgets by the largest amounts.<\/p>\n

This was followed by mental health, which saw overspends of nearly \u00a33.3 million in 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n

\"\"Table: Mental health saw overspends of around \u00a33.3 million in each of the last two years. (Government of Jersey)<\/p>\n

Deputy Binet also addressed the rising cost of off-island mental-health and social care placements, which Mental Health Director Andy Weir had previously said was driven by an increased number of patients with \u201cvery specific needs that required a high level of intensive nursing care\u201d.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Health Minister explained that mental-health and social care placements in the UK peaked in 2024 with 27 placements.<\/p>\n

\"\"Pictured: Deputy Tom Binet.<\/p>\n

He explained that average day rates for such placements had increased from \u00a3533 in 2017 to \u00a3761 per day in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cCases exceeding \u00a31,000 per day have occurred in 2023 and 2024,\u201d Deputy Binet said.<\/p>\n

Mental-health care in Jersey reached around \u00a31.9m in 2023 and \u00a31.6m in 2024, according to the Minister.<\/p>\n

The overall cost of mental-health placements was listed as more than \u00a310 million and \u00a311 million in 2023 and 2024 respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cExpenditure on purchase of healthcare has continued to increase over a sustained period,\u201d added Deputy Binet.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of healthcare activity and purchasing is need driven, not discretionary or budget driven.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmall shifts in patient need can create large swings in cost, especially in a small island system, where volatility is amplified due to unavoidable reliance on off-island providers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Overspending within Jersey\u2019s mental-health service stood at more than \u00a33 million in both 2023 and 2024, it has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[8953,105,187793,17878,218,134777,49568,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-597678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-budgets","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-and-care-jersey","11":"tag-health-minister","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-overspending","14":"tag-scrutiny","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115623165623115389","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}