Express & Star

Green light for £65m extension at Queen Elizabeth Hospital

Plans for a £65 million expansion to a major West Midlands hospital have been given the go-ahead.

Published
An artist’s impression of how the building could look after the work on the £65 million extension is completed

The scheme at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham will see the postgraduate centre opposite the women’s hospital knocked down and replaced by a new, partly private, seven-storey building.

Bosses said the new base ‘will deliver high quality acute healthcare for private patients in the region, as well as providing additional capacity and specialist facilities for NHS patients’.

The scheme is a joint venture between the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust Foundation Trust and HCA Healthcare UK.

It will provide 138 beds including 72 for the NHS and 56 for private patients, while it will employ 150 people including 97 nurses.

A spokesman said: “The 14,728 sq m hospital will be equipped with the latest technology to provide some of the most complex surgical and medical procedures in cancer, cardiology, neurology, hepatobiliary, urology, orthopaedics and stem cell transplantation.

“The facility will include 66 beds dedicated to private patient care, which will be owned and run by HCA UK, in addition to 72 NHS beds, a new radiotherapy unit and state-of-the-art operating theatres.”

The scheme, which has been designed by global design firm HOK, will be built by VINCI Construction UK. Construction is expected to be finished by 2020.

Dr Dave Rosser, executive medical director at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust said: “The new facility will add much needed acute capacity for NHS patients in the region with additional world-class facilities and expertise co-located to provide complex and excellent care.”

Claire Smith, chief executive officer at HCA UK Joint Ventures, added: “We are delighted that building plans for the new hospital facility on campus at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham have now been approved.

“We look forward to working with University Hospitals Birmingham in the next phase of this project.”