Midland Metropolitan: Still no date set for opening of long-overdue 'super hospital'

The Midland Metropolitan University Hospital in Smethwick had originally been due to open back in 2018 but the project has been hit by a string of delays and it is now hoped it will finally open next year.

The original date was delayed by the collapse of Wolverhampton-based firm Carillion. Balfour Beatty then took over the project with an expected opening date of 2022.

But the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust said last autumn that the date was unlikely to be met and has now confirmed it will be open next spring at the earliest.

However Rachel Barlow, director of system transformation at the trust, told councillors that no date has been set.

She said: "We haven’t got a completion date at the moment. We’re looking to clarify that with Balfour Beatty. The pandemic has taken its toll, you can read that in the press, these aren’t new in terms of some of the construction.

"We are currently reviewing the programme about it and confirm a date. So at the moment, we can’t confirm a date but we are getting ready to move spring 23. It won’t be ready this year.

"So despite not having a date, we’re not going to stop our clinical transformation or workforce planning hiring the right staff. That would be a mistake.”

Ms Barlow also confirmed West Midlands Ambulance Service has been contracted to serve emergency ambulances and patient transport with 22 ambulances expected to be taken into Midlands Metropolitan “as a minimum”.

The plans were discussed at a Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee with Birmingham City Council and Sandwell Council on Thursday.

Up to 10 levels of floors are expected to be created, including facilities for urgent care patients and a winter garden with a welcome centre.

Meanwhile the hospital on Grove Lane will be in the shape of an M when viewed from above.

In the designs of Midlands Metropolitan Hospital patients will have their own “protected space” away from the public, with privacy and pandemic management listed as priorities.

Ms Barlow added: "If you walk into [City and Sandwell General Hospital] at the moment, you’ve got very public corridors that patients have been wheeled around.”

She added: “50 per cent of the side rooms are single side rooms. We’ve tested and simulated the pandemic through the building in terms of oxygen supply, and how we deal with expanded critical care.

“It will be a very advantageous place to work in such circumstances, although hope we don’t have to experience that again.”

Dementia-friendly facilities will be included.

Ms Barlow said: “The design that patients with dementia have – which we look after an increasing amount – are in an environment that of course isn’t their home, but it’s friendly enough in the design to help them to navigate round to find their room to make their experience as effective as possible.”

The meeting also heard a “significant amount of beds and hoists” will be included to deal with patients who are obese.

Ms Barlow added: “[Midlands Metropolitan Hospital] is purpose built and it would be much much better than our current buildings, which go back many years.

“The design absolutely still stands up to both pandemic management and the modern best practice health care that we’ve designed going forward.

“A big emphasis is same day emergency care. For us, that’s a significant change in the way that we’re working to strengthen community services to care for patients.

Ms Barlow said the hospital will be designed only for “urgent care patients”, adding, “our protected diagnostic facilities that we’re having there will be a very responsive service to diagnose health issue treatments.”