£1 billion urban regeneration plan for Bournbrook and Selly Oak which included the construction of a £350 million retail development and the construction of the Selly Oak bypass. Proposals for the new hospital were unveiled in 1998 and the outline design, which was unveiled in January 2004, was approved by Birmingham City Council in October 2004. It was the first acute hospital to be built in Birmingham since 1937. The new hospital was procured under a Private Finance Initiative contract with Consort Healthcare signed in early 2006. The hospital was designed by BDP Architects and construction, which was undertaken by Balfour Beatty at a cost of £545 million, began in June 2006. Five Liebherr 280 EC tower cranes were used during construction. Three of the cranes were among the tallest free-standing structures in the UK. One of the cranes was at its maximum free-standing height, under the hook and could lift 12 t at or 4.9 t at . The other two cranes stood at . The finished complex comprised three 63-metre-tall towers, each 9 stories tall. A sky-bridge was erected between one of the towers and the retained estate allowing access to the departments of oncology, the pharmacy and the Wellcome Research Centre. As well as providing patient care, provision was made for an education centre and retail outlets. Services from Selly Oak hospital moved in during the week beginning 16 June 2010, and services from the old Queen Elizabeth Hospital finished moving in November 2011. This allowed simplification of operation due to two hospitals being relocated to one single site, which has the same capacity as the two previous hospitals combined. The hospital is part of the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest teaching trusts in the country and a member of the Shelford Group collaboration of the ten largest teaching and research NHS hospital trusts in England. It also hosts the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre. Services The hospital has 1,215 patient beds including capacity for 100 critical care beds – largest single-floor unit in the world. It also has six MRI scanners, five CT scanners, four gamma camera/SPECT-CT systems, eight ultrasound rooms, five fluoroscopy rooms and five interventional radiology suites. The hospital is the new home of the 'Royal Centre for Defence Medicine', which cares for injured service men and women from conflict