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Postgraduate Teaching Hospitals, London (Grouping)

Volume 643: debated on Tuesday 27 June 1961

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asked the Minister of Health whether he will make a statement on the future of the London postgraduate teaching hospitals.

Yes. Following consultations with the University of London, the British Postgraduate Medical Federation, and the University Grants Committee, I have agreed in principle that in the interests of teaching and research and of the hospital service generally the special postgraduate hospitals and institutes should as far as possible be brought together in two groups for which the nuclei already exist.Accordingly, I am proposing that the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, the Hospital for Sick Children, the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and the Eastman Dental Hospital shall remain or be developed with their institutes on their present sites in the Holborn area; and the two branches of Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Institute of Ophthalmology will in due course be brought together and developed on the site of the Royal Free Hospital in Gray's Inn Road.As regards the other group, I am proposing that the Brompton Hospital (with which the London Chest Hospital is to be combined) and the Royal Marsden Hospital will remain and be developed with their respective institutes in their present locations on the Fulham Road. With them will be located the following smaller hospitals, with their institutes, as and when they are rebuilt: St. Peter's, St. Paul's and St. Philip's Hospitals, St. John's Hospital for Diseases of the Skin and also St. Mark's Hospital. Provision will be made for the eventual inclusion of the National Heart Hospital and the Institute of Cardiology. I am still considering the best arrangements to make for the Town Branch of the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital and its institute.Because of their special circumstances, I have agreed that Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital and the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospitals, with their respective institutes, need not be moved into either of the two groups. Apart from the transfer of St. Mark's Hospital the proposals do not affect Hammersmith Hospital nor the Postgraduate Medical School associated with it.The proposals involve redevelopment of the sites now occupied by the Chelsea Hospital for Women and St. Luke's Hospital. The Chelsea Hospital for Women will be rebuilt adjacent to Queen Charlotte's. St. Luke's Hospital urgently needs to be replaced, and I am satisfied that satisfactory alternative geriatric provision can be made for the area: specific proposals will emerge from consideration of the 10-year plan for the South West Metropolitan Region.