Soaring Midland Metropolitan hospital costs prompts call for Carillion criminal investigation
Revelations that a West Midlands NHS Trust is facing a bill of £400m because of delays to the Midland Metropolitan Hospital has prompted union Unite to call for an “immediate” criminal investigation into the original contractor Carillion, which collapsed in January.
In papers prepared for a board meeting of the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust on Thursday December 6, Toby Lewis, the Trust’s chief executive, admits that it will cost £400m to complete the Midland Metropolitan hospital and keep the existing City hospital operational until 2022.
In the report, Lewis said: “I will update the board when we meet on the issuing of the final procurement notice for the completion work on Midland Met, to finish the new build ready for opening by 2022.
“More than £400m will be spent on completion and enabling works to keep City (the existing hospital) working until 2022. Our relative financial stability in the last five years is helping funders to invest with us with confidence.”
The Midland Metropolitan hospital was set to have been completed this year but work halted when Carillion collapsed. It is now scheduled to be completed by 2022.
Lewis said Balfour Beatty is making “good progress” with the interim works while the final contractor will be selected by open competition.
The original budget for the project was £350m of which Carillion had already received £205m before its collapse.
The £400m bill faced by the trust is to complete the hospital and also the cost of the work to reopen wards at city hospital which were due to be demolished.
Unite assistant general secretary Howard Beckett said: “These figures are truly staggering. It is outrageous that the taxpayer is going to have to pay more to get the project completed than the entire original budget.
“In September Unite called for an immediate criminal investigation into the directors and senior managers responsible for Carillion’s collapse and I am renewing that call, as the cost of the company’s recklessness continues to spiral.”
Unite regional officer Su Lowe said: “Carillion’s directors distorted their accounts and continued to trade when the company was insolvent. Taxpayers are being forced to pay tens if not hundreds of millions to clear up the mess, if that is not criminal behaviour, it certainly should be.
“In a desperate bid to keep treating patients the trust is being forced to reopen wards which have been closed and were due to become houses. This in itself is spending millions of pounds on what is at best a short term fix.”
