Trust to put 'robust plans' in place for Berwick Community Hospital after Merit goes into administration
A health trust says it has robust plans in place “to ensure construction work continues to progress on the Berwick Community Hospital” following the news that its construction partner for the project has gone into administration.
It has been revealed that James Lumb and Will Wright from Interpath were appointed joint administrators to Merit Group Services Limited and Merit Health Limited and Merit Holdings Limited (together, ‘Merit’) on November 17 and November 18 respectively.
The Cramlington-based firm had previously said that a petition to wind up being launched by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) led to “significant additional pressure” on its cashflow following the difficulties caused by contractual issues and delays to a number of its major contracts.
The announcement said that the companies “have now ceased operations and as such, and with regret, the joint administrators have made the majority of Merit’s circa 340 member employees redundant”.
Merit Holdings was the construction partner for Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust on its new £35million Berwick Community Hospital and the medicines manufacturing unit project at Seaton Delaval.
An update and statement has been issued by the trust in relation to the community hospital following the news as it still needs to be finished. The update says that ‘external work to be completed on site includes putting up the cladding and completing groundworks’.
‘Internally, the inpatient ward and Well Close Medical Group areas are nearly completed. The next phase will include completing work in the theatre and endoscopy areas.
‘All the services in the building will then be tested and validated to make sure that everything works the way it should before staff and patients can access the hospital.’
The statement by a trust spokesperson said: “Northumbria Healthcare has been made aware that Merit has now been placed in administration.
“This continues to be a very unfortunate situation and we appreciate that this will be a very difficult time for all involved.
“We are now able to put the robust plans we have in place to ensure construction work continues to progress on the Berwick Community Hospital.
“We would like to reassure people that we are going to do everything we can to complete our new hospital as soon as we can.
“We appreciate that everyone is keen to know when our new hospital will open, but it is difficult to provide a firm timescale at this time. We will provide an update as soon as we can.”