Officials 'aware of' hospital overspend for months

States officials knew about the budget problems last February, deputies have been told

States officials knew about a potential £30m overspend on the hospital extension in February 2023, the President of Guernsey's health committee has said.

Deputy Al Brouard said Health & Social Care (HSC) only found out about the revised estimates for the project on 19 December 2023 and that "any staff who were aware of this information are no longer employed by the States of Guernsey".

In the meantime, deputies agreed the original £120m budget for the project in October 2023.

Mr Brouard said the Policy and Resources Committee (P&R) was informed of the new projections at the end of February 2024.

During a statement to deputies about the project, Mr Brouard said it was "unacceptable these updated estimates were not shared wider than a small number of staff".

He added his committee would be doing all it could to ensure that the project was kept within the initial budget.

Mr Brouard said work to look at how it could be kept within budget would take "several months" and he would not provide a commentary.

He said if the project was to cost more than originally budgeted, he promised it would be returned to the States for approval.

When questioned by States members, Mr Brouard said there was no political oversight on the project board.

Phase one of the project to extend the hospital is "entering the final stage of work" and should be completed in Autumn, according to Mr Brouard.

P&R has warned it felt "strongly" there should be no change to the £120m figure for the works, which was approved by the States in October.

In a statement, the committee added it would look at how it could "support" HSC to identify what steps were needed to "ensure this is the case".