Grantham and District Hospital, is an

NHS 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 " ...

hospital in

Grantham Grantham () is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the Lincoln and ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

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 ...

. It is managed by United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

History

The foundation stone for the Grantham and Kesteven Hospital was laid on 29 October 1874. It was designed by

Richard Adolphus Came Richard Adolphus Came (23 April 1847 – 19 July 1917) was an architect who initially worked in London. He gained commissions over a wide area of south-eastern England and according to one source these included "boarding schools, private residen ...

and was officially opened by Lady Brownlow on 5 January 1876. An extension to a design by F. J. Lenton involving

veranda A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''vera ...

type ward blocks was completed in 1935 and, after the hospital had 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 " ...

in 1948, a new maternity department was added in 1972. The hospital achieved notoriety when nurse Beverley Allitt was convicted of killing four young patients and harming nine others with injections in the early 1990s. Due to low number of mothers having babies in Grantham, the trust took the decision to close the birthing unit in February 2014. The hospital had 24-hour accident and emergency facilities until July 2016 when the trust decided to close it temporarily from 6.30 pm to 9 am as they did not have enough doctors. Attendance at the A&E fell from 80 a day to 60, and admissions to the hospital fell from 14 a day to 12. A march in protest at the closure attracted 6,000 people on 29 October 2016, complaining that it was 35 miles to the nearest A&E. The United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust proposed demolishing the 1874 hospital building in 2014 to replace it with a car park. This did not occur but the building has since been left abandoned and deteriorating. The trust renewed efforts to demolish the building in 2021 citing "safety and visual impact" concerns. A local campaign was begun to petition for the saving of the structure, which ''Private Eye'' described as "the most impressive and interesting building on the site". In 2020 the emergency department at the hospital was temporarily closed. In April 2021 a judicial review at the High Court ruled that the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust did not consult properly on their plans for a 'green site' there, because they thought there would be too much resistance to it. Local campaigners were incensed.

Maternity unit

50 maternity beds were planned in 1964, to be built by 1966; previously there were 12 beds at the hospital and 12 maternity beds at the Hill View hospital.

Visits

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother visited the hospital on 26 June 1963.''Grantham Journal'' Friday 28 June 1963, page 2

References

External links

United Lincolnshire Hospitals
{{authority control Hospitals in Lincolnshire Hospitals established in 1874 Buildings and structures in Grantham 1874 establishments in England NHS hospitals in England

History

Maternity unit

Visits

See also

References

External links