£125m needed to complete hospital as opening delayed
AN extra £125 million is needed to allow construction of the stalled 669-bed Midland Metropolitan Hospital to go ahead.
The opening of the long-awaited hospital, serving patients in Birmingham and the Black Country, is set to be delayed until 2020 even if the cash is provided. Without it, the work will be set back even further.
NHS managers warn further delays could damage A&E services currently provided at City Hospital in Birmingham and Sandwell Hospital .
West Midlands mayor Andy Street has written to Cabinet Minister David Lidington warning: “I strongly believe swift intervention is now required on this specific issue.”
The hospital, in Smethwick, was previously expected to cost £350 million. But construction has stalled since the collapse in January of construction giant Carillion, which was building it on behalf of Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals Trust.
Toby Lewis, chief executive of Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals Trust, told the Birmingham Post: “We are currently providing emergency services across two hospitals. Trying to stretch our staffing and resources across two hospitals is difficult.
“The certainty of having a single hospital site means that we can provide better quality services. It also means that staff want to come and work for us.
“Over the past year we have hired over 130 new nurses, many of them attracted by the promise of coming to work in purpose-built facilites.
“Every month that goes by where there is uncertainty and delay eats into our ability to deliver high quality servces.”
The new hospital was originally due to open in October 2018, but this was delayed to spring or summer 2019 even before the collapse of Carillion.
Hospital managers now believe the earliest it could be opened is early in 2020 but this depends on construction work resuming in the spring of this year.
Mr Lewis said: “We need to identify the additional funding in order to make this work.
“And then we need to identify a construction company who are prepared to finish the job.
“The absolute commitment we have made is that the price will not be borne by the local NHS.
“But it clearly is still a big sum of money to finish this hospital.”
West Midlands Mayor Andy Street has told Ministers that Swedish construction giant Skanska could step in to the breach and resume construction.
However, this would require funding to be provided quickly – possibly involving the Government taking on the debt involved in building the project. The original plan was for the private sector to take on the debt, as part of what is known as a PFI scheme.
In his letter to Mr Liddington, Mr Street said: “If we take the route of integrating Skanska into the project, the Trust believe the project can be delivered by Q1 2020 and that we should progress this route unless there are clear, timetabled alternatives that can be laid out over the next two weeks.”
Other options include negotiating a new PFI contract with a private sector partner, but this would mean the opening of the hospital is delayed even further,
he said.
Every month that goes by where there is uncertainty and delay eats in to our ability to deliver high quality services Toby Lewis