Ealing Hospital

Ealing Hospital
London North West Healthcare NHS Trust
Geography
Location Southall, Greater London, England, United Kingdom
Organisation
Care system Public NHS
Hospital type District General
Affiliated university Imperial College London
Services
Emergency department Yes Accident & Emergency
Beds ~358
History
Founded 1992
Links
Website www.lnwh.nhs.uk
Lists Hospitals in England

Ealing Hospital is a district general NHS hospital, part of London North West Healthcare NHS Trust, located in the Southall district of the London Borough of Ealing, west London, England. It lies on the south side of the Uxbridge Road 8.5 miles west of central London. It sits between Southall town to the west and Hanwell to the east. It is built on land that was once part of Hanwell Asylum, now St. Bernard's Hospital which is run by West London Mental Health (NHS) Trust.

The general hospital has around 358 beds and employs about 1,620 staff.

History

There have been various iterations of a hospital on the site since 1869.

Organisation name Years active
Ealing Dispensary 1869–1871
Ealing Cottage Hospital and Provident Dispensary 1871–1911
King Edward Memorial Hospital and Provident Hospital 1911–1948
King Edward Memorial Hospital 1948–1978
Ealing District General UnitDGU[] 1979–1992
Ealing Hospital NHS Trust 1992 to 2014
Ealing Hospital, London North West Healthcare NHS Trust 2014-Current

The present Ealing District Hospital was built in the late 1970s and opened 5 November 1979. Occupying part of St. Bernard's Hospital former grounds, the whole complex was renamed Ealing Hospital. At the same time, the King Edward Memorial was closed along with the nearby Hanwell Cottage Hospital in Green Lane and many of the services provided by the Southall-Norwood Hospital on The Green were transferred to the new hospital. It existed as an independent trust from 1992 to 2014. The adjacent St. Bernard's Hospital regaining its old identity to provide mental health services once more.

Merger

In October 2014, as part of a drive towards efficiency savings in the NHS, Ealing Hospital NHS Trust merged with The North West London Hospitals NHS Trust.[1] Ealing Hospital is undergoing a merger process that will see acute services distributed between itself, Northwick Park and St Mark's Hospital, and Central Middlesex Hospital. It is anticipated that there will be a phased removal of acute care services from Ealing Hospital in the medium to long term, with discussions currently ongoing about the closure of maternity services.[2]

History of Maternity Unit

The original NHS provision for births was Perivale Maternity HospitalPerivale[], Greenford. With a total of 67 beds and ten cots in a special care baby unit, Ealing residents 'chose' to have 33.5% of their births here at a rate of 1,800 per annum. (Queen Charlotte's Hospital came second with 23.5%). Various working committees agreed that for various reasons it would be better to move the facilities at Perivale to a new maternity unit located on the same site as Ealing General. Thus, on 1 March 1985 a proposal was submitted outlining a number of options together with assessments of relative costs and benefits. The aim was for a 60 beds unit to be able to reach 2,500 deliveries per annum.[3] The new Ealing Maternity Unit opened in March 1988 on the south-west corner of Ealing General. It is built on three levels and has two internal entrances granting direct accesses to the General wing. It underwent major refurbishment in 1996. The Unit now has 40 beds on the postnatal/antenatal wards. Labour Ward has 8 delivery rooms. Close by are 3 midwife delivery rooms. The Special Care Baby Unit has 15 cots and 5 mothers' beds. It is continuously at full capacity at about 2,800 deliveries per year.

Quality of Care

In 2008 Ealing hospital trust was listed last out of the 165 trusts in England in a survey of patients' ratings of the level of care. Director of Nursing Paul Reeves said that the data was collected in August 2007 and the trust was addressing the issues with a series of action plans.[4]

A 2008 report by the independent body Patient Environment Action Team (PEAT) gave Ealing Hospital NHS Trust an “excellent” rating for food, and a “good” score for hygiene. The PEAT inspection team is made up of NHS staff including nurses, doctors and service managers and public and patient representatives.

In 2008/09 Ealing Hospital did well in a Dr Foster patient safety enquiry achieving a band 4 - better than many other hospitals in the surrounding area.[5] The hospital currently has an overall 2 star status.

In September 2014, following the closure of nearby Emergency Departments at Central Middlesex and Hammersmith Hospitals, there was a significant increase in pressure on surrounding departments, including at Ealing Hospital, where the percentage of patients being seen under 4 hours fell to 67.8%.[6] An independent review is ongoing about the impact the decision to close these departments has had on emergency care in the North West London area.[7]

Care UK runs an urgent care centre on the site which was investigated by ITV’s Exposure programme in July 2015.

Directorates

The Trust is governed by a Board of Executive and Non Executive Directors. The Chairman is Ian Green and the Chief Executive is Julie Lowe.

Partnerships

The hospital maintains an academic partnership with Hammersmith Hospital (NHS) Trust and Moorfields Eye Hospital (NHS) Foundation Trust. On the same grounds is the Moorfields Eye Hospital Unit which serves as the local ophthalmic service.

Notes

^ DGU: This period has gone on to sometimes cause confusion. Owing to the government edict of the day that local psychiatric and maternity services were to be viewed and treated no differently from any other parts of the health service, they demanded that these services to be combined with the services provided by district hospitals. Hence, it became the 'General Unit.' During this time: St. Bernard's Hospital, the (then new) John Conolly Wing and Max Glatt Unit became collectively known as the 'Psychiatric Unit'. The whole complex was called 'Ealing Hospital'. This situation remained until the 'General Unit' and Maternity Unit administration split away to become the Ealing Hospital (NHS) Trust. For some years afterwards, such functions as site care and maintenance was still under the direction of the psychiatric services trusts of St Bernard's Hospital until the new Ealing Hospital NHS Trust started to prepare for Foundation status and became fully autonomous. This confusion has resulted in television crews pointing their cameras at the wrong buildings and delivery vans and juggernauts - having see the sign for St Bernard's 'wing' - going round and round looking for St. Bernard's Main Hospital block but in the adjacent housing estate just to the west.
^ Perivale:  Originally opened 1948 as Perivale Maternity Home, the site eventually had 166 homes built upon it - Notting Hill Housing Trust.

See also

References

  1. NHS Trust Development Authority. "Merger of The North West London Hospitals NHS Trust and Ealing Hospital NHS Trust". Retrieved 2014-12-29.
  2. London Evening Standard. "Campaigners at Ealing Hospital: 'Closing our maternity unit is madness'". Retrieved 2014-12-29.
  3. Briggs P W (March 1st 1985) District Medical Officer. Submission of Ealing Health Authority: Maternity – Approval in Principle submission.
  4. "London NHS trust 'worst for care'". BBC News. 2008-05-14. Retrieved 2008-05-15.
  5. http://www.drfosterhealth.co.uk/quality-accounts/trust.aspx?otype=2&id=56
  6. London Evening Standard. "A&E waiting times at west London hospitals hit a record after closures". Retrieved 2014-12-29.
  7. Ealing Council. "Independent commission to review A&E closures". Retrieved 2014-12-29.

External links

Coordinates: 51°30′25″N 0°20′44″W / 51.50694°N 0.34556°W / 51.50694; -0.34556

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