When will the new Royal Liverpool Hospital be open? It's a question that has been rightfully asked for some time.
Liverpool's new 650-bed Royal Hospital was supposed to open to the public in 2017.
It had already experienced delays when construction company Carillion collapsed in 2018, leading to much wider complications and longer delays.
Eventually, the Private Finance Initiative that had been used to fund the project was torn up and it was announced in 2018 that public money would be used to complete the building.
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However, when new contractors arrived on the site they found significant construction problems that needed to be addressed - adding further delays and additional costs onto the project.
The new construction contractor had to strip out three floors of the building and start major work to reinforce the structure with steelwork and additional reinforced concrete.
Part of the remedial work involves replacing thousands of square metres of wrongly installed and dangerous cladding fitted onto the hospital building by Carillion.
In 2020, a report from the National Audit Office projected that the overall costs of the new Royal could tip over the £1.1 billion mark - although most of those extra costs will be picked up by private PFI investors and Carillion, rather than the taxpayer.
There was some positive news concerning the new building during the pandemic - when a state-of-the-art unit on the new site opened to help Liverpool's virus fight.
Three wards were used to form the 'step-down' unit which was used to help patients recover from Covid-19 and other conditions.
The unit, consisting totally of single-bedded rooms, was a major boost to the city’s health and social care response to Covid-19, and was the first clinical activity to be provided in the new Royal building.
Construction work is continuing on the site - but things are edging closer to the finish line.
A spokesperson for the Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust this week told the ECHO that it remains the hope that work on the building will be completed this spring.
After this, the work of moving equipment and services on site will take place - with an aim to open the hospital to the public later in the summer.
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