Ex-chief minister calls for MSG contract rethink

Guernsey's former chief minister is calling for a change to the contract with the provider of secondary healthcare.

Following Health and Social Care Committee's (HSC) annual report saying the Medical Specialist Group (MSG) had missed 15 of its 22 main targets in 2025, Deputy Gavin St Pier said "a more fundamental change in the States' commissioning model" was needed.

He added: "The report rightly seeks to explain why last year's numbers are what they are but... it noticeably does not seek to explain what is being done to improve the position."

Dr Michelle Le Cheminant, chair of the MSG, said: "Patient outcomes and the experience people have of their care are at the heart of everything we do."

She added: "While performance measures provide important insight into how services are operating, what matters most is what they mean for patients. In 2025, that included very low rates of hospital-acquired infection, all medical oncology patients being admitted within two weeks, and strong emergency care outcomes.

"Those are the measures that reflect the quality of care patients receive in our consultant delivered model and why we would welcome the inclusion of even more outcome and experience-based measures in future reporting."

St Pier was also critical of the lack of an explanation of why the report was eight months late.

He said: "Whilst some favourable comparisons are drawn with performance in the NHS, given the crisis which that institution is in, that does not feel like the right jurisdiction to compare us against.

"Most islanders would want and expect better."

Health bosses have come under fire from the head of the island's scrutiny committee for not doing any interviews following the release of the report.

Each year, Guernsey's States pays the MSG about £18m for the delivery of secondary healthcare.

The report highlighted positive signs when it came to gastroenterology waiting times and orthopaedics.

The main areas where targets were missed were waiting times, delayed transfers of care, complaints response times, clinic/theatre punctuality, discharge summaries and outpatient appointment cancellations.

St Pier said: "Most significantly, many of the KPIs are output rather than outcome based.

"The quality of care and the outcome of that care matters more to patients than raw numbers.

"Given, we are told, that this is the last report in this format, there is an opportunity to shift the reporting for 2026 and subsequent years.

"However, this needs a more fundamental change in the States' commissioning model and the contract itself which would be a cultural challenge for both HSC and MSG."

Le Cheminant added: "We remain committed to listening to patient feedback, learning from experience and working collaboratively across the healthcare system to deliver further improvements for islanders.

"Patients have the opportunity to feedback to the MSG in a range of ways, including through our 'We're Listening' terminals, or formally through our customer care team."

HSC has been contacted for comment.

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