Work on the super hospital scheme halted when Carillion collapsed in January 2018.

Since then the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Hospitals Trust has been trying to get the project restarted with a massive Government bail-out.

Now in the next few weeks it can sign a contract with Balfour Beatty to restart work with a target to complete by April 2022.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, said: “It is absolutely right that the Midland Metropolitan hospital is completed so that doctors and nurses working for our NHS across the West Midlands can deliver excellent care in brand new, state-of-the-art facilities.”

Balfour is presently on site carrying out care and maintenance under a £13m agreement.

It has been working with the Trust and cost consultant Gleeds to complete MEP validation and assess supply chain returns for the restart.

Under the terms of the £267m publicly-funded design and build deal, the contractor will assume risk for completion, with the exception of certain works.

Balfour would be paid for the cost of the works completed, not the target price. Any savings on the target price would be shared with the trust as a ‘gain share’ to incentivise the bidder to deliver best value.

The trust plans to hold £38m as a contingency against any unforeseen costs deemed to be out of the scope of the contract.

This funding follows the government’s recent commitments of £2.7 billion to fund six new hospitals, £850 million for 20 hospital upgrades and £100m towards developing business case proposals for new building projects across 34 hospitals.