Midland Metropolitan University Hospital is a major new £350m acute hospital in Smethwick for the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust. It will provide 81,000m2 of clinical space, 670 beds & 11 theatres plus a major maternity unit.  The new hospital enables a new acute care model for the Trust, and it brings two acute units into one state of the art facility.  Located on a brownfield site close to the border of Birmingham and Sandwell, it will lead the regeneration of the surrounding area.

Involved since 2014 when I was the Bid Director for the PFI project and subsequently took the project through to Financial Close in 2015.  I was then a director of the SPV (special purpose vehicle) set up to manage the construction, financing and maintenance of the PFI project until Carillion went into liquidation in 2018.  Following that I worked with the Trust, funders and the IPA (Infrastructure Projects Authority) seeking ways to re-finance and re-start the construction work.  The PFI contract was subsequently cancelled, and I worked as a consultant for the Trust procuring an Early Works Contract and then a Replacement Construction Contract.  I was appointed as Project Director for the Trust in 2020.

The hospital is a tiered design, car parking at the base, clinical services above, wards on top.  It has been designed to be easy to navigate around whether as a staff member or as patient or relative.  The views from the bedrooms stretch out across the Black Country and into Birmingham, and the quality of daylight inside is incredible – it feels open and bright.  It has a unique winter garden at the fifth-floor level – what looks like a giant conservatory at the front is actually a key part of the circulation and wayfinding strategy, and it will house café and restaurant space and an art gallery open to the community.