Pontefract Hospital is an acute

District General Hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergency ...

Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the towns in the City of Wake ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

operated by the

Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust runs Pontefract Hospital, Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield and Dewsbury and District Hospital and community health services in Wakefield, all in West Yorkshire, England. It has been under financial pressure ...

. The hospital primarily serves the towns of Pontefract and the

five towns The Five Towns is an informal grouping of villages and hamlets in Nassau County, United States on the South Shore of western Long Island adjoining the border with Queens County in New York City. Although there is no official Five Towns de ...

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History

$Former Pontefract General Infimary$ $Pontefract General Infirmary - geograph$ The original hospital in

was the Pontefract Dispensary which was established in Sessions House Yard in 1812. The foundation stone for a new hospital in Southgate was laid by

Hugh Childers Hugh Culling Eardley Childers (25 June 1827 – 29 January 1896) was a British Liberal statesman of the nineteenth century. He is perhaps best known for his reform efforts at the Admiralty and the War Office. Later in his career, as Chancellor ...

Secretary of State for War The Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, which existed from 1794 to 1801 and from 1854 to 1964. The Secretary of State for War headed the War Office and ...

on 7 May 1880; it was opened by John Rhodes, the Mayor of Wakefield, on 8 December 1880. The facility became Pontefract General Infirmary on the formation of 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 " ...

in 1948. A new hospital, to be known as the Pontefract Hospital, was procured under a

Private Finance Initiative The private finance initiative (PFI) was a United Kingdom government procurement policy aimed at creating "public–private partnerships" (PPPs) where private firms are contracted to complete and manage public projects. Initially launched in 199 ...

contract to replace Pontefract General Infirmary in 2007. The new hospital, which was designed by the

Building Design Partnership Building Design Partnership Ltd, doing business as BDP, is a firm of architects and engineers employing over 900 staff in the United Kingdom and internationally. History BDP was founded in 1961 by George Grenfell-Baines with architects Bill White ...

and built by

Balfour Beatty Balfour Beatty plc () is an international infrastructure group based in the United Kingdom with capabilities in construction services, support services and infrastructure investments. A constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, Balfour Beatty works ac ...

at a cost of circa £150 million, was completed in January 2010. It was opened by the

Duke of Gloucester Duke of Gloucester () is a British royal title (after Gloucester), often conferred on one of the sons of the reigning monarch. The first four creations were in the Peerage of England and the last in the Peerage of the United Kingdom; the curren ...

in July 2010. In March 2018 it was announced that the Accident and Emergency Department at Pontefract Hospital would be reclassified as a 24-hour

Urgent Treatment Centre An urgent care center (UCC), also known as an urgent treatment centre in the United Kingdom, is a type of walk-in clinic focused on the delivery of urgent ambulatory care in a dedicated medical facility outside of a traditional emergency department ...

from the following months with people with life-threatening injuries being sent to the nearest A&E department which is at,

Pinderfields Hospital Pinderfields Hospital is an acute District General Hospital in Wakefield, West Yorkshire operated by the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. History The original acute hospital in Wakefield was established as part of the Stanley Royd Hospital and ...

instead. The local MP,

Yvette Cooper Yvette Cooper (born 20 March 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Department, Shadow Home Secretary since 2021, and previously from 2011 to 2015. She served in Gordon Brown's Brown ministry, Cabinet as ...

, responded to the action: $The Accident and Emergency Unit, Pontefract General Infirmary - geograph$ In October 2019, Mid Yorkshire Trust announced that the maternity-led birth centre would be shut until October 2020 "on the grounds of safety" due to a national shortage of midwives. It also announced that it would be closing 12 of the 42 beds at the hospital's

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

and rehabilitation unit. Local MP

has led a campaign against the action, calling it "an absolute disgrace".

References

External links

Official site
{{authority control Hospitals in West Yorkshire Hospital buildings completed in 2010 NHS hospitals in England Pontefract