The Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital (the RNTNEH) was a health facility on Gray's Inn Road in London. It closed in October 2019 when services transferred to the new Royal National ENT and Eastman Dental Hospitals on Huntley Street, London, WC1E 6DG. The Huntley Street hospital continues to provide specialist ENT, sleeps and allergy services and is part of

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) is an NHS foundation trust based in London, United Kingdom. It comprises University College Hospital, University College Hospital at Westmoreland Street, the UCH Macmillan Cancer C ...

. The hospital's

motto A motto (derived from the Latin language, Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian language, Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a Sentence (linguistics), sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of a ...

is ''Audient surdi mutique loquentur'' (the deaf shall hear and the mute shall speak).

History

The hospital was founded in 1874 by Lennox Browne, Llewellyn Thomas, Alfred Hutton, George Wallis and Ernest Turner. The hospital initially opened in Manchester Street (now Argyle Street), but demand for its services was such that new premises were acquired on

Gray's Inn Road Gray's Inn Road (or Grays Inn Road) is an important road in Central London, located in the London Borough of Camden. The road begins at its junction with Holborn at the City of London boundary, passes north through the Holborn and King's Cross ...

: the foundation stone was laid by

Adelina Patti Adelina Patti (19 February 184327 September 1919) was a Spanish-Italian opera singer. At the height of her career, she was earning huge fees performing in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851, a ...

, a leading singer, in 1875. The new facility opened, as the Central London Throat Nose and Ear Hospital, in 1877. A new wing was opened by

Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll (Louisa Caroline Alberta; 18 March 1848 – 3 December 1939) was the sixth child and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert. In her public life, she was a s ...

in 1906. She also laid the foundation stone for the Princess Louise Wing which was built between 1928 and 1929. In January 1942 the hospital was amalgamated with the Hospital for Diseases of the Throat in

Golden Square Golden Square, in Soho, the City of Westminster, London, is a mainly hardscaped garden square planted with a few mature trees and raised borders in Central London flanked by classical office buildings. Its four approach ways are north and so ...

to form The Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital. It then joined the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

in 1948. In April 1991 the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, comprising the Royal Free Hospital and the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital, became one of the first

NHS trust An NHS trust is an organisational unit within the National Health Services of England and Wales, generally serving either a geographical area or a specialised function (such as an ambulance service). In any particular location there may be several ...

s established under the provisions of the NHS and Community Care Act 1990. In April 2012,

took over management of the hospital from the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust. In October 2019 UCLH opened a new hospital in Huntley Street to house the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and the Eastman Dental Hospital and many departments moved there. Following the COVID-19 Pandemic the remaining wards, operating theatre and sleep unit were shut down earlier than planned and moved to the new hospital and UCLH. The original site at 330 Gray's Inn Road is now closed. The Ear Institute remains in place for research and teaching. There are two notable pieces of art in the entrance: on the left there is a plaque commemorating the Royal Ear Hospital as a memorial to the parents of Geoffrey Duveen, by Felix Joubert, and on the right there is a carving of St. Blaise, by Cecil Thomas.

Services

The following services are currently provided at the new Royal National ENT and Eastman Dental Hospitals on Huntley Street: *

allergy Allergies, also known as allergic diseases, are various conditions caused by hypersensitivity of the immune system to typically harmless substances in the environment. These diseases include Allergic rhinitis, hay fever, Food allergy, food al ...

and medical rhinology * audiological medicine and neuro-otology *

cochlear implant A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted Neuroprosthetics, neuroprosthesis that provides a person who has moderate-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss with sound perception. With the help of therapy, cochlear implants may allow for imp ...

s *ear, nose and throat services *hearing therapy *

rhinology Otorhinolaryngology ( , abbreviated ORL and also known as otolaryngology, otolaryngology–head and neck surgery (ORL–H&N or OHNS), or ear, nose, and throat (ENT)) is a surgical subspecialty within medicine that deals with the surgical an ...

rhinoplasty Rhinoplasty (, nose + , to shape), commonly called nose job, medically called nasal reconstruction, is a plastic surgery procedure for altering and reconstructing the human nose, nose. There are two types of plastic surgery used – plastic sur ...

and facial plastic surgery *

snoring Snoring is an abnormal breath sound caused by partially obstructed, turbulent airflow and vibration of tissues in the upper respiratory tract (e.g., uvula, soft palate, base of tongue) which occurs during sleep. It usually happens during in ...

and

sleep disorders A sleep disorder, or somnipathy, is a medical disorder affecting an individual's sleep patterns, sometimes impacting physical, mental, social, and emotional functioning. Polysomnography and actigraphy are tests commonly ordered for diagnosing sle ...

speech Speech is the use of the human voice as a medium for language. Spoken language combines vowel and consonant sounds to form units of meaning like words, which belong to a language's lexicon. There are many different intentional speech acts, suc ...

and language therapy

Research

The hospital is Europe's research centre for audiological medicine.

Notable people

Graham Fraser Graham Fraser (born 1946) is a Canadian former journalist and writer who served as Canada's sixth Commissioner of Official Languages. He is the author of several books, both in English and French. Early life and education Fraser is the son o ...

, consultant and pioneer of

cochlear implants A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted neuroprosthesis that provides a person who has moderate-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss with sound perception. With the help of therapy, cochlear implants may allow for improved speech unde ...

in the United Kingdom. * Professor Ronald Hinchcliffe was a consultant at the hospital in the 1960s, where he established a vestibular research laboratory. * Edith Whetnall led the way in treating the deaf.John Ballantyne, 'Whetnall , Edith Aileen Maude (1910–1965)',

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...

, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 30 Nov 2015
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References

External links