BOSSES at the company that is building Swindon's Great Western Hospital have waved goodbye to a £17 million windfall.

The potential jackpot had been due to directors of Wolverhampton-based construction firm Carillion almost three years after its demerger from Tarmac.

But the pay bonanza, based on an incentive scheme known as the Founders' Equity Plan, has been scrapped because the company has had to change the way it keeps it books.

The scheme's 125 members invested just over £2 million, giving them 1.5 million shares and options over a further six million with the majority of any awards going to company directors.

The windfall was due if the Carillion's average share price reached 276p over the six weeks to August 31.

But last week the company's share price tumbled, dropping to 140p on Friday, after it was forced to scrap a method of accounting that was said to flatter profits.

The move came after concern among investors over the way Carillion accounted for Government contracts through private finance initiatives, the method being used to finance the Great Western Hospital, and public private partnerships.

Under new rules the costs of mounting a bid, which can run into millions of pounds, must be booked to the company's profit and loss account.

Carillion did this on contracts it did not win, but deferred the cost of those that were successful.

These accounting changes will see around £12 million wiped off the company's profits over the next two years.

If shares had averaged 276p, Carillion would have handed out four additional shares for each one bought under the plan.

Directors would still have benefited, but to a lesser extent, with one share handed out for each one bought if the share price had hit the 146p mark in the period to the end of August that now looks unlikely to happen.

In spite of this bad news for Carillion's directors the company is on target to complete work on the £148 million state-of-the-art hospital at Commonhead by November 5 .

Project manager Paul Dempster said: "We are still on course to finish on schedule.

"Everything is going very well and people are counting down the days until it is complete.

"Commissioning of the building services is well under way and we are close to turning it from a building site to an operational facility.

"Swindon and North Wiltshire has been crying out for a state-of-the-art hospital for a while and I have no doubt that the Great Western will serve its people well."

The hospital, which will replace Princess Margaret Hospital two miles to the west, will have fewer beds than its predecessor.

But will be also supported by a network of intermediate care units allowing beds to be freed up more quickly.

The Great Western Hospital will take 464 inpatient beds and 87-day case beds.

It will also have 19 per cent more clinical floor space that PMH and will be supported by a 60-bed rehabili-tation unit.