Flagship hospital hit by Carillion collapse and pandemic to open six years late

A flagship Midlands super-hospital, which was hit by both Carillion’s 2018 collapse and the pandemic, is opening in October, six years late.

Balfour Beatty, which was drafted onto the job in 2019, has announced that Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust board has given the go ahead to open the Midland Metropolitan Hospital (MMU) in Smethwick on 6 October.

The nine-floor building will be the largest acute care hospital in the region with approximately 700 beds for inpatients.

Covering a gross internal floor area of about 85,924 sq m, the MMU will serve more half a million people with facilities for acute and emergency care as well as paediatric, maternity, and inpatient adult care.

The planned super-hospital, which was designed to replace A&E departments at Sandwell and Birmingham’s City hospitals, was originally supposed to open in October 2018, Building has previously reported.

When Balfour Beatty took over the project, which forms part of the previous government’s New Hospital Programme, it was hoped that it would be complete in time for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

However, Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS trust said work was further delayed by the impact of the pandemic. In addition, the facade had to be replaced in the wake of new fire safety regulations and the hospital’s M&E redesigned.

As a result of these fresh delays, planned opening dates in early 2023 and 2024 were both missed.

The MMU’s features also include a sickle cell and thalassaemia centre, a Winter Garden and outdoor spaces to help patients stay active and single ensuite rooms for half of the beds in the MMU’s wards.

The site of the hospital will also be home to a new £18m learning campus, largely funded from Towns Fund investment, which is due to open in 2025. This facility will offer further and higher education courses as well as apprenticeship opportunities within the new hospital.

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Lindsay McGibbon, managing director of Balfour Beatty’s regional buildings business, said: “This is a momentous moment for everyone at Balfour Beatty and the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust.

“Achieving this milestone was only made possible thanks to years of hard work and dedication from our people, who deserve a special mention for safely and successfully delivering this long-awaited, transformative hospital which will deliver significant benefits for the local community for years to come.”

Richard Beeken, chief executive of Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “This is truly a key moment for our patients, people, and population as we know that this winter, we will be delivering emergency care in an environment which exceeds expectations and delivers benefits in wellbeing both for patients and our staff.”