Royal Free Hospital
Royal Free Hospital | |
---|---|
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust | |
Geography | |
Location | Pond Street, Hampstead NW3 2QG, London, England |
Coordinates | 51°33′11″N 0°9′55″W / 51.55306°N 0.16528°W |
Organisation | |
Care system | NHS England |
Type | Teaching |
Affiliated university | University College London Middlesex University |
Services | |
Emergency department | Yes |
Beds | 839 |
History | |
Opened | 1828 1974 (present site) |
Links | |
Website | www |
Lists | Hospitals in England |
The Royal Free Hospital (also known simply as the Royal Free) is a major
History
Early history
What became the Royal Free Hospital was founded in 1828 by the surgeon William Marsden to provide free care to those of little means.[1] It is said that one evening, Marsden found a young girl lying on the steps of St. Andrew Church, Holborn, dying from disease and hunger and sought help for her from one of the nearby hospitals. However, none would take the girl in and she died two days later. After this experience Marsden set up a small dispensary at 16 Greville Street, Holborn, called the London General Institution for the Gratuitous Care of Malignant Diseases. The hospital became the London Free Hospital in 1833, and the Free Hospital in 1835.[1] A royal charter was granted by Queen Victoria in 1837 to what then became the Royal Free Hospital, after it was the only hospital to stay open during the 1826–1837 cholera epidemic[2] and had cared for many victims.[1][3]
As demand for in-patient facilities increased the hospital moved to the former barracks of the Light Horse Volunteers in Gray's Inn Road in 1844.[1][4] The north wing of the former barracks, which was rebuilt and renamed the Sussex Wing after Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, a benefactor of the hospital, re-opened in 1856 and the south wing, which was rebuilt and renamed the Victoria Wing after Queen Victoria, re-opened in 1879.[1] Meanwhile, the western elevation on Gray's Inn Road, which was rebuilt and renamed the Alexandra Building after the Princess of Wales, was re-opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales in July 1895.[1] Some additional land was purchased and used to develop the Helena Building, named after Princess Helena: the building was completed in 1915 and served as the Royal Free Military Hospital for officers during the latter stages of the First World War before becoming the maternity wing after the war.[1] The Eastman Dental Clinic opened in a building adjacent to the main hospital in 1929.[1] The Victoria Wing was badly damaged by a V-1 flying bomb in July 1944 during the Second World War.[1]
Royal Free disease
In 1955 an apparent outbreak of an infectious illness, involving fever and subsequent persisting fatigue along with other symptoms, affected 292 members of staff and forced the hospital's closure between 25 July and 5 October. There was subsequently some debate as to whether the episode was of an infectious cause, or just an example of
Move to Hampstead
By the late 1960s the site on Gray's Inn Road had become too cramped, and a modern 12-storey cruciform tower block was built in Pond Street, Hampstead on the site of the former Hampstead General Hospital founded by William Heath Strange. It opened in 1974, and was officially opened by the Queen in 1978 on the Royal Free's 150th anniversary.[1]
Meanwhile, the Eastman Dental Hospital took over the whole of the Gray's Inn Road site.
MMR vaccine controversy
In February 1998, the Royal Free held a press conference to coincide with the publication in
Ekweremadu organ trafficking case
In February 2022 a Nigerian male was presented to a private renal unit at the Royal Free hospital, in an attempt to persuade doctors to carry out an £80,000 kidney transplant. For a fee, a medical secretary at the hospital acted as an interpreter between the man and the doctors, to try to convince them he was an altruistic donor. Later, Ike Ekweremadu was convicted of organ trafficking, along with his wife Beatrice, and a doctor, Obinna Obeta, with the aim of harvesting the man’s kidney for Ekweremadu's daughter, Sonia. The court heard that Chris Agbo, an NHS consultant nephrologist at Hinchingbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire, was paid by the Ekweremadus to facilitate the proposed transplant. Agbo also helped arrange a previous successful kidney transplant at the Royal Free, involving another man suspected of being trafficked from Nigeria, the jury was told.[11][12]
Education
For a long time, the Royal Free was the only London hospital allowing women to study medicine, forming an association with the London School of Medicine for Women, under which women from the school completed their clinical studies at the hospital, from 1877. Under the Deanship of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, one of the school's founders, it became part of the University of London and in 1896 became known as the London Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women. In 1998 it merged with the University College Hospital's medical school to form the Royal Free and University College Medical School, renamed the UCL Medical School in 2008.[3][13]
Facilities
The Royal Free Hospital has a
Significant advances in the fields of liver medicine (
Performance
The hospital was rated 'good' by the Care Quality Commission in September 2017.[18] In a report of the Care Quality Commission completed in May 2019, Royal Free Hospital's overall surgical safety rating was downgraded from "good" to "requires improvement", due to a "large number" of "never events"—incidents so serious they should never have happened—which were partially related to "poor behaviours" by a few consultants at the Royal Free London NHS Trust and failures of the Trust's management.[19]
Transport
The Royal Free is near Belsize Park tube station and Hampstead Heath railway station, and on several bus routes. There are limited car parking facilities.[20]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Royal Free Hospital". Lost hospitals of London. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
- ^ About Us (PDF). Royal Free London. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
- ^ a b Royal Free History 2018.
- ^ Lynne A. Amidon, Illustrated History of the Royal Free Hospital (London: Special Trustees of the Royal Free Hospital, 1996)
- PMID 3028544.
- ISBN 0-906923-96-4.
- ^ "Ian Charleson Day Centre". Royal Free Hospital. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
- guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
- ^ Deer, Brian (22 February 2004). "Revealed: MMR research scandal". The Times. London: The Sunday Times. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
- ^ Deer B (8 February 2009). "MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism". Sunday Times. London. Archived from the original on 25 May 2010. Retrieved 9 February 2009.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 11 May 2023.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 11 May 2023.
- ^ UCL 2005.
- ^ a b "London's Royal Free Hospital: Why it is the UK's frontline defence against Ebola". The Daily Telegraph. 30 December 2014. Archived from the original on 30 December 2014.
- ^ "Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey transferred to London unit". BBC News. 30 December 2014.
- ^ Lisa O'Carroll (30 December 2014). "Treating Ebola: inside the Royal Free hospital's high-level isolation unit". The Guardian.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/76674. Retrieved 26 January 2017. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "The Royal Free Hospital". Care Quality Commission. 20 September 2017. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
- ^ "'Culture of bullying by surgeons' linked to Royal Free blunders". Evening Standard. 10 May 2019. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- ^ "How to get to the Royal Free Hospital". Royal Free London. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
Bibliography
- "Our history". Royal Free London. NHS. 25 May 2018.
- "London School of Medicine for Women". UCL Bloomsbury Project. UCL. 2005. Retrieved 25 May 2018.
External links
- Official website
- Royal Free Specials Pharmaceutical
- UCL Medical School
- Archives of the Royal Free Hospital held at the Royal Free Archive Centre Archived 2 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- Royal Free Private Patients
- Lists of Royal Free Hospital students
- How British Women Became Doctors: The Story of the Royal Free Hospital and its Medical School - Neil McIntyre/Wenrowave Press 2014