Fordingbridge Hospital is a small

community hospital A community hospital can be purely a nominal designation or have a more specific meaning. When specific, it refers to a hospital that is accessible to the general public, and provides a general or specific medical care which is usually short-term, ...

Fordingbridge Fordingbridge is a town and broader civil parish with a population of 6,000 on the River Avon in the New Forest District of Hampshire, England, near the Dorset and Wiltshire borders and on the edge of the New Forest, famed for its late medieva ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The hospital is on the same site as the previous Fordingbridge Infirmary and prior to that the Fordingbridge Workhouse. The buildings are largely original Victorian with a modern ward for inpatients. It is managed by

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS foundation trust which provides community health, mental health and learning disability services across Hampshire. It is one of the largest providers of such services in England. History The trus ...

based in Calmore,

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

History

The hospital has its origins in the

Union Workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' ...

built on a site on Bartons Road in 1885. The site cost a little over £9,000 and the buildings were erected in the Queen Anne style. In the 1930s the facility became a Public Assistance Institution and in 1948 it joined the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

as Fordingbridge Infirmary for the Chronic Sick. After the Fordingbridge Cottage Hospital at Highfield House on Alderholt Road closed, its services were transferred to the Bartons Road site in 1984, and a modern facility, known as Ford Ward, opened on the Bartons Road site, which itself became known as Fordingbridge Hospital.

Services

The hospital provides 20 beds for older people and has physiotherapy and occupational therapy support. A small outpatient department in the older building accommodates a moderate range of specialities including: podiatry, ear, nose and throat services, audiology, speech and language therapy, continence service, dermatology services, stroke clinic services and dietitian services.

Notes

References

{{authority control Hospitals in Hampshire NHS hospitals in England Hospitals established in 1885 Poor law infirmaries Fordingbridge