Planners give green light to £430m super-hospital
PLANS for a £430m super-hospital straddling Birmingham and Sandwell have been approved by councillors.
Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council’s planning committee gave the green light to the scheme last night.
Wolverhampton-based Carillion has already been selected the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust as preferred bidder for the massive scheme, which will be delivered by the Midland Metropolitan Hospital Public Private Partnership project.
(See Video Below)
A Carillion joint venture, The Hospital Company, will be responsible for the scheme, which will be operated as a Public Private Partnership under a 30-year concession contract using the Government’s PF2 model.
The new state-of the-art hospital, which will have around 670 beds and 15 operating theatre suites, has been designed to meet the latest highest standards for patient care and high-quality clinical services.
The new hospital will also have a number of innovative design features including a fully enclosed Winter Garden, car parking within the hospital building on the ground and first floors – intended to create a secure environment for both patients and staff and full separation of clinical activities and journeys from the public and non-clinical services.
Carillion has already said the design and construction of the hospital will meet the highest standards of sustainability.
The Midland Met brings emergency and acute healthcare for both adults and children onto a single site. This means that the most complex care provided by the health trust will be available consistently, seven days a week. Meanwhile, outpatient services, intermediate care facilities and planned surgery will continue and be further developed on the existing City Hospital and Sandwell General Hospital sites.
This means that most care presently provided locally will stay local. The Birmingham and Midland Eye Centre remains on Dudley Road. The trust will continue to expand services in community locations such as Rowley Regis, as well as to provide more care from strategic primary care locations like Neptune Health Centre in Tipton and Tower Hill Medical Centre in Perry Barr.
Trust chairman, Richard Samuda, said: “This is yet another exciting step in the decade long campaign to bring 21st century hospital care to local residents and create an environment that staff can be proud to work within. This is the last-but-one step, with the trust now able to proceed to try and sign a contract, with our preferred supplier. We aim to do that before January 2016.”
The new hospital is due to open in autumn 2018.
[VIDEO: 851]
