Midland Metropolitan Hospital: ‘Temporary’ urgent treatment centre to be built at new hospital - here's why

A ‘temporary’ urgent treatment centre is set to be built at a new hospital.

The plans by the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust would see trailers used as an urgent treatment centre at the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital for “approximately” 18 months.

Three trailers would be placed at the ‘super’ hospital in Smethwick, which finally opened last October after years of delays, while the trust waits for Sandwell Council to decide on a planning application for a permanent building.

Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust said the temporary urgent treatment centre would serve the same function as its proposed permanent facility – assessing patients and directing non-emergency cases away from the hospital’s main A&E in a bid to cut waiting times.

The trust said it acknowledged that planning permission and construction would take a “significant period of time.” The application for the permanent urgent treatment centre, submitted in June last year, expected the facility to be open this summer.

A letter by planning agents by Turley on behalf of the NHS trust said: “The proposed urgent treatment centre will act as a supplementary building to the main hospital building to provide capacity to triage patients and direct non-emergency cases away from the emergency department.

“The intention is to reduce the number of patients and wait times at the emergency department, and to treat patients with minor injuries.

“Acknowledging that receiving permission for the urgent treatment centre and then constructing it will take a significant period of time, the trust is seeking to develop a temporary urgent treatment centre to ensure capacity to deliver such care in the interim period.”

The opening of the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital saw the closure of the A&E at Sandwell Hospital in West Bromwich and City Hospital in Birmingham. Sandwell Hospital has since been used as an urgent treatment centre.

Midland Metropolitan University Hospital finally opened in October after years of delays. Work on the hospital started in 2016 and it was expected to open in October 2019 at a cost of about £350m, but the collapse of the original contractor Carillion, rising material costs, the withdrawal of government funding and a shortage of construction workers all added to the delays. A government audit put the likely cost of building and running the hospital for the first 30 years at nearly £1bn.

A plan to build a new 1,300-student £19 million teaching campus on the hospital site was approved by Sandwell Council in 2023. The education and skills campus will provide a range of healthcare training from entry to masters level with links to the new hospital.