On Prescot Street in central Liverpool, the Royal Liverpool University Hospital is the largest and busiest hospital in Merseyside. Part of the NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group, it works alongside the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, making it both a major teaching facility and a centre for medical research.
A Long Road to the Present Building
The origins of the hospital lie in a post-war decision to consolidate three city centre hospitals onto a single site close to the University of Liverpool. The three facilities being replaced were the Liverpool Royal Infirmary on Pembroke Place, the David Lewis Northern Hospital on Great Howard Street and the Royal Southern Hospital on Caryl Street. Building on the first phase, designed by Holford Associates and constructed by Alfred McAlpine, did not begin until 1963. That phase ran from 1963 to 1969 and was troubled by cost overruns, delays and quality issues, with fire certification complications arising from changes in health and safety law during construction. The second phase followed, and the hospital finally opened in 1978.
The Troubled Redevelopment
A £429 million redevelopment, procured under a Private Finance Initiative contract, reached financial close in December 2013. Designed by NBBJ and HKS, the new building was intended to be the largest all single-patient room hospital in the UK, with a scheduled completion of March 2017. By March 2017, the project was already more than a year behind schedule due to asbestos, cracking concrete and bad weather. Then, on 15 January 2018 – less than a fortnight after further delays were announced – main contractor Carillion went into liquidation, partly because of its difficulties with this contract. A subsequent review revealed the project had been costing £53.9 million more than Carillion had officially reported. After years of additional remediation work, the hospital eventually opened in late 2022, around five years behind its original schedule. Its connection with the Liverpool BioCampus has helped position Liverpool as one of the leading UK cities for health research and innovation.