{"id":787088,"date":"2026-09-30T04:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T04:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787088\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T04:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T04:52:10","slug":"guernsey-hospital-extension-scrapped-as-costs-more-than-double","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787088\/","title":{"rendered":"Guernsey hospital extension scrapped as costs more than double"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guernsey<\/a>‘s Health and Social Care (HSC) committee have abandoned plans to extend and modernise the island’s hospital, after concluding the programme is “now unaffordable”. <\/p>\n

Phase 2 of the Hospital Modernisation Programme – which involved building new operating theatres, expanding surgical capacity, and updating maternity facilities – was approved by the States Assembly in October 2023 with a budget of \u00a3120 million. <\/p>\n

However, the latest cost estimate for ‘Phase 2A’ alone totaled \u00a3273 million. <\/p>\n

HSC attribute this dramatic rise to inflation, rising construction and procurement costs, and a more comprehensive understanding of the complexity of the plans. <\/p>\n

So far, \u00a35.9 million has been spent on Phase 2 – something HSC insist is not a waste, but “will inform future health and care infrastructure planning”. <\/p>\n

HSC have also announced they will not proceed with the second phase of their project to digitise patient records – instead transferring all outstanding work to the States’ Digital & Technology team.<\/p>\n

Phase 1 of the modernisation project – which includes the new Critical Care Unit at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital – will still be completed. <\/p>\n

However estimated costs for this are now nearly \u00a340 million and the new units are not expected to open until the middle of 2027. <\/p>\n

President of HSC Deputy George Oswald said: “we have made what I consider to be the entirely appropriate decision to stop. <\/p>\n

“We must recognise the need for investment in the HSC estate because of increasing demands […] however these changes must be commensurate with the needs of the island and delivered cost effectively.<\/p>\n

“Continuing [with Phase 2] is unaffordable and it would not be responsible to continue investing in the development of a proposal that cannot realistically be delivered.<\/p>\n

He adds that, going forwards, his Committee does not want to pursue “‘big bang’ programmes with a wide array of elements'”, and instead develop more specific strategies for tackling some of the island’s complex health service problems. <\/p>\n

“We hope that by taking this targeted approach, we will be able to address issues like the continuing need for additional theatre capacity and general investment in healthcare infrastructure in a much faster and more cost-effective way.”<\/p>\n

However, the Committee’s current projections indicate that healthcare costs will increase by approximately \u00a35 million a year if nothing changes. <\/p>\n

Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know… <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guernsey‘s Health and Social Care (HSC) committee have abandoned plans to extend and modernise the island’s hospital, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-787088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}