Midland Metropolitan Hospital faces new delay threat
The opening of the long-awaited Midland Metropolitan Hospital could be delayed even further if a shake-up of local NHS boundaries goes ahead.
Birmingham Council has backed plans to redraw the boundaries of Sandwell and West Birmingham clinical commissioning group (CCG) to create a new body covering Solihull and the whole of Birmingham.
The change would rely on Sandwell’s remaining primary care services such as GPs, dentists and pharmacists coming under the umbrella of a health group covering Walsall, Wolverhampton and Dudley.
Councillors backed the proposal as their preferred option despite concerns of its impact on the much delayed Midland Metropolitan Hospital.
But Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, which is building the Metropolitan, has hit out at the plans.
A spokesman said: “New hospitals are not about approving plans, they are about building relationships. Moving the deckchairs 30 months from delivery risks that. Hard borders are not, perhaps, wise.
“We will publish in mid-May the time and financial consequences of any disintegration decision locally.
“We are working with construction partners to ensure that they understand that the Secretary of State has given an absolute guarantee that this scheme will proceed and that local NHS representatives must not imperil that commitment.
"It is imperative Ladywood, Perry Barr and Sandwell remain united – whether that is with Solihull and Birmingham, or Walsall and Dudley is a matter for GPs and patients, not managers or politicians.”
In a report to the trust’s board members chief executive of the trust Toby Lewis said: “It remains our strong view that any such hard border proposal is a red rated risk to the coherence of the Midland Metropolitan Hospital business case.”
He added: “The position is clearly a very disappointing one, given the commitment of partners to the delayed completion of the site.”
Mr Lewis has since said the signing of a new contract to could now be pushed back to as late as July.
The committee’s decision will now be forwarded to Birmingham’s cabinet which will decide on its final option as part of the plans’ public consultation.
