Next stage of work on Guernsey's hospital dropped as 'unaffordable.'

Tuesday, 29 September 2026 11:40

By Euan Mahy

Nearly £6M has been spent on the drawings and preparation for Phase 2 but cost pressure means it is being shelved.

The hospital modernisation programme has been dogged by increasing costs and subsequent delays.

The new critical care unit and post-operative care beds were due to open three years ago in the autumn of 2024, but the latest estimate is that it will be close to autumn 2027 before they are ready to take patients.

The Health Committee has been given more than £3M to finish the work but says delays due to fire regulations will be paid for by the contractor.

The larger Phase 2 transformation has been branded 'unaffordable' and has been shelved. It went over budget by around £10M at the design stage two years ago, and since then inflation has pushed costs up even further.

A plan to split it into Phase A and B has been unable to drive these down.

It has taken around £5M to get to this stage, but Health Committee president George Oswald says lessons have been learned:

"Going forward, as a committee we are intending to approach this type of work in a different way.

"We don’t want to pursue ‘big bang’ programmes with a wide array of elements.

"Instead, we want to look strategically at where projects can have the greatest impact, agree a plan to develop a specific solution, and then deliver it, rather than taking on huge, sweeping changes which inevitably take years, or several political terms, to deliver."

The first phase of the new digital patient records system is over deadline but is largely complete and within budget.

To stop more money being spent on Phase 2, it will be given to the States' Digital and Tech team to complete.