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Construction will restart on the new Royal Liverpool hospital, which stalled following the collapse of Carillion, “as quickly as possible” after the government agreed to fund the project.
Most of the original contractors are expected to remain involved.
The news follows an announcement earlier this week from the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust NHS Trust that it was terminating the private finance initiative (PFI) deal on the project.
The government said it backed the local trust’s proposal to end the PFI deal and continue work on the hospital with public sector funding.
“Despite constructive engagement from the lenders who have funded the project to date, they have concluded they will be unable to complete and operate the hospital under the original terms,” a statement from the Department of Health and Social Care said.
It now hopes the 646-bed hospital will open in 2020.
Health minister Steve Barclay said: “I am pleased to confirm that the government will step in and publicly fund the remaining work so that the hospital is completed, as it has also done with the Midland Metropolitan Hospital in Birmingham.
“It is a central purpose of PFI that construction risk sits with the funders. This has also been at the heart of the time it has taken since January when Carillion went into liquidation, as the lenders commissioned detailed expert assessments of the previous construction work.”
Aidan Kehoe, chief executive at Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals, said: “The trust intends to continue working with the existing construction contractors involved, so that the construction finishes as soon as possible, maximising the value for money of the taxpayers’ investment in the hospital.”
