St George's Hospital

St George's Hospital is a teaching hospital in Tooting, London. Founded in 1733, it is one of the UK's largest teaching hospitals and one of the largest hospitals in Europe.[2] It is run by the St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It shares its main hospital site in Tooting in the London Borough of Wandsworth, with St George's, University of London which trains NHS staff and carries out advanced medical research.

For other uses, see St George's Hospital (disambiguation).

St George's Hospital
St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Shown in Wandsworth
Geography
LocationBlackshaw Road
London
SW17 0QT[1]
Organisation
Care systemNHS England
TypeTeaching
Affiliated universitySt George's, University of London
Services
Emergency departmentYes (Major Trauma Centre)
Beds1,300
History
Opened1733 (1733) (Hyde Park Corner), 1976 (1976) (current site)
Closed1980 (1980) (Hyde Park Corner)
Links
Websitehttp://www.stgeorges.nhs.uk
Other linksSt George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The hospital has around 1,300 beds and most general tertiary care such as accident and emergency, maternity services and care for older people and children. However, as a major acute hospital, St George's Hospital also offers specialist care for the more complex injuries and illnesses, including trauma, neurology, cardiac care, renal transplantation, cancer care and stroke. It is also home to one of four major trauma centres and one of eight hyper-acute stroke units for London.

St George's Hospital also provides care for patients from a larger catchment area in the South East of England, for specialities such as complex pelvic trauma. Other services treat patients from all over the country, such as family HIV care and bone marrow transplantation for non-cancer diseases. The trust also provides a nationwide endoscopy training service.

History

Early history

Following a disagreement between medical staff and the Board of Governors over the expansion of the Westminster Infirmary, a mass exodus of medical staff left, in 1733, to set up what became St George's Hospital.[3] The Board of Governors had favoured a house in Castle Lane[4] but the medical staff preferred Lanesborough House at Hyde Park Corner.[5]

Lanesborough House, originally built in 1719 by James Lane, 2nd Viscount Lanesborough,[6][7] was at that time located in open countryside. The new St George's Hospital was arranged on three floors and accommodated 30 patients in two wards: one for men and one for women. The hospital was gradually extended and, by 1744, it had fifteen wards and over 250 patients.[8]

St. George's Hospital, Hyde Park Corner

By the 1800s, the hospital was slipping into disrepair. The old Lanesborough House at Hyde Park Corner was demolished to make way for a new 350 bed facility designed by architect William Wilkins. Building began in 1827 and was completed by 1844.[9]

By 1859, a critical shortage of beds led to the addition of an attic floor. This was soon insufficient and led to the creation of a new convalescent hospital, Atkinson Morley's in Wimbledon, freeing up beds at St George's for acute patients.[10]

A medical school was established in 1834 at Kinnerton Street and was incorporated into the hospital in 1868. The Medical School, now St George's, University of London, was built in the south-west corner of the hospital site in Hyde Park, with the main entrance in Knightsbridge and the back entrance in Grosvenor Crescent Mews.[11]

In 1948, the National Health Service was introduced and plans for a new site for St George's at The Grove Fever and Fountain Hospitals at Tooting were eventually agreed upon. In 1954, the Grove Hospital became part of St George's, and clinical teaching started in Tooting.[5]

Relocation to Tooting
Hospital buildings in Tooting, 2015

In 1973, building began on the new site. The new hospital and school buildings were now well advanced. The School was completed, as were two wings of the new hospital, which provided a total of 710 beds. In 1976, the Medical School opened at Tooting and, in 1980, St George's Hospital at Hyde Park Corner closed its doors for the last time.[8] (The building still stands and is now The Lanesborough Hotel on the west side of Hyde Park Corner.)[12]

In 1981, medical education in London was reorganised to recognise the movement of population away from the centre. There are now fewer, larger medical schools in London. The expansion of St George's, University of London (formerly St George's Hospital Medical School) has become part of this policy.[13]

In 2004, neuroscience services located at Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon moved to the brand new Atkinson Morley Wing on the main St George's site.[14] This addition to the hospital now also houses cardiac and cardiothoracic services which have moved from the old fever hospital wards. St George's today provides a total of over 1,000 beds making it one of the biggest in the country.[15]

In April 2010 St George's Healthcare became part of the South West London and Surrey Trauma Network (SWLSTN). All Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments within the network continue to provide trauma services with St George's designated as the major trauma centre. It is one of a small number of A&E departments to benefit from Pearson Lloyd's redesign – 'A Better A&E' – which reduced aggression against hospital staff by 50 per cent. A system of environmental signage provides location-specific information for patients. Screens provide live information about how many cases are being handled and the current status of the A&E department.[16] In October 2010 St George's Healthcare NHS Trust integrated with Community Services Wandsworth, after approval from NHS London.[17]

In May 2014 the Trust's application for Foundation Trust status was approved by the NHS Trust Development Authority following a positive rating from the Care Quality Commission. In the last five years the trust has turned around a large deficit and repaid a debt of £34m. The TDA identified several areas that the trust will have to work on to ensure it gets through the final stages of FT assessment. These include improving its A&E performance against the four-hour waiting time target and putting together a robust operating plan for the next two years.[18] From October 2014 the hospital's Accident and Emergency department has featured in the Channel 4 documentary series "24 Hours in A&E".[19]

In August 2018 it was reported that the average death rate nationally among patients receiving cardiac surgery was 2%, but that the cardiac unit at St George's had experienced 3.7%. Toxic disputes between surgeons were blamed. Mike Bewick wrote a report claiming "inadequate" internal scrutiny of the department; also the surgeons were divided into "two camps" showing "tribal-like activity". Bewick stated, "In our view the whole team shares responsibility for the failure to significantly improve professional relationships and to a degree surgical mortality." The hospital maintained it was taking action.[20]

Notable students and staff

Among those who have been associated with St George's are:

In the media

The old hospital was the subject of an impromptu poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.[22]

The hospital is part of the long-running Channel 4 documentary series 24 Hours in A&E.[23]

Arms
Coat of arms of St George's Hospital
Notes
Granted 28 February 1835 [24]
Crest
On a wreath of the colours a lion rampant Or resting the forepaws on an antique shield charged with the figure of St. George slaying the dragon Proper.
Escutcheon
Or the staff of Aesculapius in pale Proper surmounted by a celestial crown Azure.
Supporters
On the dexter side a figure representing Aesculapius Proper habited in a robe Purpure supporting with the left hand his staff also Proper and on the sinister side a figure representing Hygeia vested Argent holding in the exterior hand the patera and serpent Proper.
Motto
Deus Incubat Angui

See also

References
  1. "St George's Hospital". St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  2. "University guide 2015: St George's, University of London". The Guardian. 25 May 2015. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  3. "Westminster Hospital". Lost Hospitals of London. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  4. Crellin, John K. "Eighteenth Century Pharmacy at St George's Hospital London". Cambridge University. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
  5. "History". St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  6. Lysons, Daniel (1795). "'Chelsea: (part 3 of 3)', in The Environs of London: Volume 2, County of Middlesex". London: British History Online. pp. 162–184. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  7. The London high life Archived 14 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  8. History of St George's Hospital Medical School Archived 9 September 2012 at Archive.today
  9. "Designs for St George's Hospital, Hyde Park Corner, London: elevation of entablature and capital with profiles of the cornice". RIBA. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  10. Gould, Terry, & David Uttley (2000). A History of the Atkinson Morley's Hospital 1869-1995. London: Athlone. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-567-63304-0.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  11. "St George's, University of London, has a long and rich history, dating back more than 250 years". St George's, University of London. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  12. "Oetker Collection takes on management of the Lanesborough hotel". The Caterer. 12 November 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  13. "London Undergraduate Medical Schools (Reorganisation)". Hansard. 17 March 1981. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  14. "Atkinson Morley's Hospital". Lost Hospitals of London. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  15. "St. George's Hospital, NHS and the state of thoracic surgery". Thoracic Surgery. 6 December 2011. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  16. "A&E department redesign 'cuts aggression by half'". Design Week. 28 November 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  17. "Merger of Wandsworth PCT's provider services arm and St George's Healthcare NHS Trust". Co-operation and Commissioning Panel. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  18. "TDA approves teaching hospital's foundation trust bid". Health Service Journal. 2 May 2014. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  19. "Introduction to St George's Hospital". Channel 4. 31 October 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  20. "Surgeons' 'toxic' rows added to mortality rate, says report". BBC. 4 August 2018. Retrieved 4 August 2018.
  21. "Obituary: Geoffrey Davies". The Telegraph. 14 December 2008. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  22. Landon, Letitia Elizabeth (1822) Poetic Sketch. Second Series - Sketch the Fourth. St. George's Hospital, Hyde Park Corner, The Literary Gazette
  23. "Channel 4 24 Hours in A&E viewers devastated after patient dies following filming of show". Liverpool Echo. 21 May 2019. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
  24. "St George's Hospital". Heraldry of the World. Retrieved 3 February 2021.

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