Colchester Hospital is a district general hospital located in

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. It is managed by

East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS foundation trust in the East of England. It runs Colchester Hospital in Colchester, Essex and Ipswich Hospital in Ipswich, Suffolk, as well as several smaller community hospitals in the ...

History

The hospital, then named Colchester District General Hospital, was opened by

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

on 20 May 1985. At the time, it had nine wards and 283 beds, built in groups around landscaped courtyards. The hospital has been expanded a number of times since its opening, and several new buildings have been added. This includes the Gainsborough wing, which opened in 2000. In 2014, the

trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another * Trust (bus ...

announced that the nearby Essex County Hospital was due to close, and that some services currently provided there would transfer to Colchester General Hospital, including breast services and nuclear medicine. In preparation for this, construction began on a new diagnostic imaging centre, which opened in 2018, in time for the transfer of services. It houses three

MRI Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves ...

scanners, one of which is wide bore, as well a

PET-CT Positron emission tomography–computed tomography (better known as PET-CT or PET/CT) is a nuclear medicine technique which combines, in a single gantry, a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner and an x-ray computed tomography (CT) scann ...

scanner, which will also be used by patients from the

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

and

Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of London a ...

areas. In 2019, plans were approved to rebuild and extend the main entrance of the hospital. The Accident & Emergency department will also be expanded, and the narrow bridge across the lake in front of the hospital will also be replaced with a wider structure. On the weekend of 2–3 January 2021 hospital security removed people who were taking pictures of hospital corridors and posting them to social media.

chief executive Nick Hulme said that it "beggars belief" that some people were calling the pandemic a hoax. He said that hospital security had to "remove people who were taking photographs of empty corridors and then posting them on social media, saying the hospital is not in crisis".

Facilities

The hospital has a helipad, used by air ambulances and for military training.

Teaching

The hospital serves as a teaching hospital for medical students from

Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry , mottoeng = Temper the bitter things in life with a smile , parent = Queen Mary University of London , president = Lord Mayor of London , head_label = Warden , head = Mark Caulfield , students = 3,410 , undergrad = 2,23 ...

and

Norwich Medical School Norwich Medical School is a medical school based at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, England. It is part of the Faculty of Medicine and Health sciences at the university. The first intake of students was in 2002. The school has a 5-year ...

Transport

Local bus routes 8, 84 and 84B, operated by

Arriva Arriva plc is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England.First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

, serve the hospital, with a bus stop located outside the main entrance. There is also a Park and Ride service, run by

Essex County Council Essex County Council is the county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Essex in England. It has 75 councillors, elected from 70 divisions, and is currently controlled by the Conservative Party. The council meets at County Hall ...

. The nearest railway station is

on the

Great Eastern Main Line The Great Eastern Main Line (GEML, sometimes referred to as the East Anglia Main Line) is a major railway line on the British railway system which connects Liverpool Street station in central London with destinations in east London and t ...

, located 1.6 miles from the hospital.

References

External links

*
Colchester Hospital
on the NHS website
Inspection reports
from the

Care Quality Commission The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom. It was established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England. I ...

{{authority control Colchester (town) Hospitals in Essex NHS hospitals in England