Jersey-based Windsor Medical is applying for permission to create a practice on the site of the planned new development of more than 100 homes near the Mallard Cinema in Forest.
The company has also placed an advert for staff on the gov.gg jobs site, and while the two main roles offered were for a pharmacy dispenser and technician, it said it would possibly be looking for full- or part-time GPs and specialists.
Windsor Medical owner Gary Whipp said there had been a great response to the advert.
‘There’s been interest from GPs, pharmacists, nurses and dispensers,’ he said.
He described the company as ‘putting out feelers’.
‘It’s at the embryonic stage at the moment.’
Windsor Medical offers free GP consultations to some Jersey patients, but Mr Whipp said the situation there was different to Guernsey – Jersey patients get a £55 grant from the government, as opposed to the £12 provided by the States of Guernsey.
But he did think it could be possible to provide services at substantially less than the current consultation fee.
‘From what I gather, people in Guernsey are paying anything from £60 to £80 for a GP.
‘We could probably make it work at £40-£43, but we’re not there yet,’ said Mr Whipp.
Windsor Medical was established as a family-run practice in the late 1940s, originally based at Windsor Crescent in St Helier, but it now operates from the Lido Medical Centre.
It also operates a dedicated medicinal cannabis clinic and Mr Whipp is also CEO of Medicann, which already provides a clinic at the Mallard site.
Its website names just five medical members of staff, both full- and part-time, which includes Dr Ranjan Vhadra, who runs First Contact Health in Guernsey and acts as a consultant for Windsor Medical.
The number of general practitioners operating in Guernsey used to be capped by an agreement within the local branch of the British Medical Association and the States. In 2015, when the cap was withdrawn, following pressure from the island’s competition regulator, the number was 42.
The BMA did not oppose the move but said at the time that it was concerned that the island could be inundated with ‘poorly qualified’ doctors, who, it said, would ‘drive up costs’.
Nowadays there is a single register of medical practitioners, which have seen numbers of doctors with local connections boom in recent years.
In 2021 there were 245 doctors listed. Last year there were 364, of which 174 were deemed local practitioners and 189 UK-connected.
The latter are often employed as agency staff working across the hospital, Medical Specialist Group, GP practices and other private providers.
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