3.5 The new Royal Liverpool University Hospital (Royal Liverpool) was originally expected to open in summer 2017. Under the Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust's (the Liverpool Trust's) current plan which has yet to be finalised, the construction contractor will hand over the building to the Trust in autumn 2022.11 The Trust has not yet set an opening date but this will be more than five years after the originally planned opening of June 2017. The existing delay is due to:
• 13 months' construction delay known about at the time Carillion collapsed in January 2018 (paragraphs 1.16 and 1.17);
• 10 months spent trying to rescue the PFI project before it was terminated in October 2018 (paragraphs 2.16 to 2.19 and 2.22);
• eight further months' delay before major remedial work began in June 2019, while subcontracts and plans were prepared. During this time Laing O'Rourke carried out significant preparation work for the remedial structural work; and
• nearly three years' delay for the remedial work to the structure and the refitting of the building to be carried out.
3.6 As at Midland Metropolitan, the delay in completing Royal Liverpool means that local people need to wait longer for the improved hospital services set out in the Trust's business case. The existing hospital building and its systems, such as heating, electricity, ventilation and water, are deteriorating. In November 2019 the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority issued an enforcement notice requiring the Trust to improve the building's fire safety within six months. The Trust told us that it was preparing an action plan to address the issues raised in the enforcement notice, where these were not already being addressed.
3.7 The new building is expected to provide individual patient rooms rather than wards and more up-to-date clinical equipment and technology. In the longer term, as at Midland Metropolitan, the new hospital is part of a wider redesign of health services in the local area and its delay will affect this work.
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11 The Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was formed in October 2019 by a merger between Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust and Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Before October 2019, the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust was responsible for the Royal Liverpool hospital project.