Birmingham Accident Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre
Queen's remained a teaching hospital until the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham opened. The outbreak of war however delayed the planned partial redeployment of the building as an accident hospital. In 1941, the opportunity was taken for Birmingham to address the problems of delay in treatment of serious injuries. Accidents in Birmingham had risen by 40% as inexperienced workers entered wartime factories. Birmingham Accident Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre as it became, was thus the last voluntary hospital in the country and its specified objectives included prevention of industrial accidents. Its Surgeon in Chief and clinical director was Professor William Gissane.
On 14 August 1944 the President of the Hospital, the Lord Mayor of Birmingham welcomed the Minister of Health Sir Henry Willink at the opening of a new reception area and Outpatients department. Sir Henry said the Accident Hospital experiment was being closely watched and was likely to have a permanent future in hospital services. Referring to the Beveridge report and his own 1944 White paper, he said he recognised the close cooperation between the University, the city authorities and the hospital and hoped that this spirit of cooperation would pervade the future National Health Service. The Parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Labour George Tomlinson described rehabilitation as "one of the great social advances which has emerged from this war". He added that only 18,000 of the 200,000 disabled and unemployed remained so.
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