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Royal Liverpool Hospital: Opening delayed again until at least 2022

BBC Royal Liverpool University HospitalBBC
Work on the new Royal Liverpool Hospital building stopped in February

The new £335m Royal Liverpool Hospital will now not open until at least 2022, its chief executive has admitted.

Steve Warburton gave an update to the already delayed 646-bed hospital which had been due to open in March 2017.

Building work was halted in February last year after construction company Carillion collapsed in 2018.

The building was found to have major structural flaws, with three of 11 floors require strengthening.

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The hospital was originally funded under a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) where companies provide money for new hospitals and then charge annual fees.

But NHS bosses announced that and public money would instead be used to complete the work.

Carillion filed for compulsory liquidation with debts of about £1.5bn and local MPs called on the government to intervene.

Birkenhead MP Frank Field described the incomplete hospital as a "creaking monument to… greed" following a damning report into the "rotten corporate culture" at Carillion.