Midland hospital plan could be hit by credit crunch
Executives at Birmingham’s largest hospital trust have revealed that ambitious £190 million redevelopment plans for three hospitals could be hit by the credit crunch.
Mark Goldman, chief executive of Heartlands, Solihull and Sutton Coldfield’s Good Hope hospitals, said the trust was being “flexible” with its ten-year plan, which includes building new wards, entrances and modernising A&Es at the sites.
Mr Goldman said the plans, which went to the board of governors in April 2007, had changed due to the “economic climate”.
He said Heart of England Foundation Trust was moving ahead with phase one to expand Good Hope to treat more patients, improve its theatres and remodel its casualty department along with creating a new outpatients department at Heartlands.
But he added that managers were looking at building temporary modular wards, which can be built quicker in only five months and last for about 16 years.
“The plan has flexibility,” Mr Goldman said. “There is likely to be a squeeze on public sector funding in coming years and this is a plan for over the next eight to ten years.
“All wards will eventually have upgrades on a rolling programme over the next ten years.
“We want to invest in Good Hope. It is on the border of Birmingham and Staffordshire and, in our view, the hospital is too small. We are building to increase capacity as it is impossible for staff to cope with the volumes of patients coming through.
“We want to give our hospitals a feel of being part of the local community. Good Hope is a major hotch potch of buildings that have gone up since the 1970s. We want to be more sympathetic on how we create the buildings but we are not going for iconic buildings of steel and glass but brick.
“We are not having an architect going bonkers and building something that looks like Selfridges in the middle of Good Hope.”
Adrian Stokes, head of finance at the Trust, said: “We now face a different financial climate than 12 months ago, so we are adapting to that and recognising where we are going to go. Phase one is still on but phase two, we are very mindful of. It’s still our ambition but we are mindful of where the cash will come from.
