History
The Royal Berkshire Hospital was opened in 1839 on the London Road on land donated by Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, a local resident and former Prime Minister. The hospital was built by local architect and builder Henry Briant, who won the design competition. King William IV took a keen interest in the hospital before it was built, and as a consequence his arms appear on the central pediment, although he died before the hospital opened. The first patron of the hospital was William's niece and successor, Queen Victoria.
In the 1860s, the original building was extended with east and west wings designed by Joseph Morris. In the 1880s, a new chapel was added to the rear of the main block, together with long side wings. Both chapel and side wings were also designed by Morris.
In 1931, the famous fighter pilot Douglas Bader had both legs amputated in the hospital by the surgeon Leonard Joyce, after an aircrash at Woodley Aerodrome. The hospital features in the film Reach for the Sky, where these events are depicted.
Catherine Middleton, the wife of Prince William, was born at Royal Berkshire Hospital on 9 January 1982, as was her sister Pippa Middleton in 1983.
In 1993, the Royal Berkshire and Battle Hospitals NHS Trust was formed, to manage both the Royal Berkshire Hospital and Battle Hospital, the town's other general hospital.
On 24 February 2006, The Queen accompanied by The Duke of Edinburgh opened the new buildings of the Royal Berkshire Hospital. This was to celebrate the completion of an eight year project to move the Battle Hospital services onto the Royal Berkshire Hospital site. In August of the same year, the Royal Berkshire and Battle Hospitals NHS Trust became an NHS Foundation Trust under the name of Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, reflecting both its new status and the closure of Battle Hospital.
In 2008, the hospital was awarded 'Excellent' for its use of resources and 'Good' for the quality of its services in the Healthcare Commission's annual health check of all the hospitals within the National Health Service. The accident and emergency department is consistently one of the most efficient in the country, with more than 99% of patients being seen and treated, admitted or discharged within four hours.
In August 2010, it was reported that the number of jobs in the hospital would be reduced by 600, out of a total of around 4000, in order to achieve a saving of £60 million.
Read more about this topic: Royal Berkshire Hospital
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)
“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice—although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)