Guernsey Press

£135,000 spent on Castel Hospital’s site upgrade

ABOUT £135,000 has been spent on upgrading part of the Castel Hospital site, despite the site have an uncertain future.

Published
Last updated
The main Castel Hospital building has now been decommissioned and HSC community services occupy a small part of the site – the adjacent annexe, and Lower Albecq and Etoile wards at the far end of the site. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 29449014)

Some mental health facilities have moved to the PEH and the site is part of the States of Guernsey Estates Rationalisation Project.

A Health & Social Care spokesman said improvement costs for the facilities had been kept to a minimum, with corporate donations of furniture helping keep costs down.

The Castel Hospital site is likely to be changing soon.

‘It is anticipated that the site may be used for up to about five years, in advance of the proposed delivery of a community hub, which would house complimentary non-acute (non hospital) HSC services in one central location,’ the spokesman said.

‘This duration is largely dependant on the identification of and funding for a community hub site – which is currently unknown.’

The main hospital building has now been decommissioned and HSC community services occupy a small part of the site – the adjacent annexe, and Lower Albecq and Etoile wards at the far end of the site.

The annexe has been in use for many years and was believed to have been built in the 1970s and it has recently undergone its third interior renovation.

The latest work cost £135,000 and included essential asbestos management throughout and decor within the Albecq area, all of the works within Etoile and the improvements within the day centre.

One large room has been changed into one-to-one consultation spaces, and there is a meeting room for any HSC services that wish to use it, offices for staff, showers, a kitchen, a family room for meeting with families in a comfortable setting and a new training area.

Head of community health and social care Karen Leach said the new facilities offered staff the chance to do things differently.

‘This is the start of centralising community services.

‘We were able to expand the available space and make the facilities much better.

‘We’ve made it a nicer environment.’

Project manager Leslie Banks said the work in the annexe marked phase three of improvements, which had started out by renovating facilities used by community nurses in other parts of the site, formerly known as Etoile and Albecq.

It had been hoped that the work would have been completed in October last year, but two lockdowns put paid to that.

The building was previously used for the wound clinic, which started about 18 months ago and is a service to provide advice, care planning and treatment for people with active wounds.

But, said nurse Ellen Phillips, when the service started it was carried out sitting around a long table in the large room that made up the annexe.

Nurse Meg Low said that their ‘office’ space involved simply moving to another corner of the room.

Both nurses were delighted at finally having proper offices, with a reception room for patients and two one-to-one consulting rooms.

A lot of the furnishings in the offices, reception and meeting rooms have been donated and Mrs Leach said she was very grateful to all the companies who helped out.

Health & Social Care committee president Al Brouard was also impressed with the renovation – and seemed especially interested in the large meeting room, which Mrs Leach anticipated being popular with many HSC departments.

The new build is being seen as a hub of community care, an idea that stems from HSC’s overall Partnership of Purpose initiative.

‘This is another piece of the jigsaw,’ said Deputy Brouard.

‘There are still other services we are looking to re-locate.’