The Health & Social Care Committee said that the first phase of the Our Hospital Modernisation programme – a new Critical Care Unit and Post-Anaesthetic Care Unit – had been built but not yet brought into use after fire-stopping concerns were identified in 2024. An independent specialist survey found that significant remedial work was needed, which the committee said had been carried out by the contractor at no additional cost to the States.
A number of further pieces of work are also required, and the committee has been allocated £3.05m. by the Policy & Resources Committee – including a £610,000 contingency – to complete them.
The committee said it had directed that the remaining remedial and additional works be carried out ‘expediently and carefully’ to bring the facilities into safe use as soon as possible.
Phase 1, which has already delivered a new electricity sub-station and an electro-biomedical engineering workshop at the hospital, had cost £33.5m. up to July 2026 – within the £34m. fixed price envelope originally agreed for the work. Now, including the forecast additional works and other costs, the total forecast now stands at £39.3m. A further £485,000 of ‘costed risk’ remains in relation to unresolved defects not connected to the fire-stopping issue.
The committee said that funding was not being requested at this stage while the matter was investigated.
On current planning assumptions, the additional works would begin before the end of the year and finish in the middle of 2027, followed by a 13-week period to commission the units and bring them into use – meaning the facilities were unlikely to open to patients until late 2027.
The committee stressed those remained planning assumptions, dependent on funding, contracting and delivery.
HSC president Deputy George Oswald acknowledged that the programme had ‘not delivered as originally promised’, but said it was important to be open about the problems that had emerged and the money that had already been spent.
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