Brand new £500m NHS hospital lies empty just 3 miles from where Theresa May launched her NHS plan
The PM went to Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool yesterday to spearhead her new plans for the health service, but Carillion's collapse has seen work on a new block grind to a halt
A BRAND new NHS hospital is lying empty just miles from where Theresa May launched her 10-year plan for the NHS yesterday.
The PM went to Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool yesterday to spearhead her new plans for the health service, but Carillion's collapse and a botched PFI deal have seen work on a new block nearby grind to a halt.
The 13-storey building with 646 beds was supposed to be finished two years ago, but now state of the art equipment is lying unused in a ghost building.
The Royal Liverpool hospital building is now set to be completed by next year, and managers are having to employ 18 staff just to turn the 4,000 taps on and off to stop the build up of harmful bugs.
And those in the hospital's existing building are facing huge delays to their care because of the old crumbling block they have to use now.
The A&E has been flooded due to bust pipes and ambulances have had to queue outside.
And the lights are on permanently, another waste of taxpayer's cash.
The woes of the situation will be laid bare in a new BBC documentary series, Hospital, which airs on Thursday night.
Liverpool's Labour mayor Joe Anderson lashed out at the PM for not meeting him when she came to visit.
He blasted: "I’ve seen how bad the existing Royal Liverpool Hospital building is myself,’ he said.
"The last time I was there, water was leaking out of an air conditioning unit and they’d put a bin underneath to catch it. It makes me feel physically sick to see the state of the exterior, and what staff and patients have to put up with every day is terrible."
The PM outlined her new plans for the NHS yesterday at a nearby Children's hospital.
She promised more people would be able to access doctors appointments online in future - which would replace thousands of GP visits.
Many patients with heart disease or dementia will also be monitored at home via gadgets.
Other changes include new targets for early cancer detection, and all children who are diagnosed with the disease being gene-tested to boost survival rates.
Chief executive of the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust Aidan Kehoe said on the programme of the delays to the new building: “I am very angry at the way Carillion have behaved.
"To leave us in this position, I think, is just unacceptable and I do look at it and think these people were taking huge bonuses that they are not paying back and will leave the people of Liverpool waiting years more for a hospital, so serious questions need to be asked about the way Carillion have behaved.”
The show will feature on the stories of six NHS Trusts across the area.
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Ministers were asked to step in after Carillion's and the Department of Health finally intervened in September.
Work stalled but resumed last October after a new deal was signed.
Local MP Frank Field described the half finished hospital as a "creaking monument to greed".
The new series of Hospital begins at 9pm on Thursday on BBC Two.
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