Colchester Hospital is a district general hospital located in

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in northeastern Essex, England. It is the second-largest settlement in the county, with a population of 130,245 at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census. The demonym is ''Colcestrian''. Colchester occupies the ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

. It is managed by

East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS foundation trust in the East of England. It runs Colchester Hospital in Colchester, Essex and Ipswich Hospital in Ipswich, Suffolk, as well as several smaller community hospitals in th ...

History

The hospital, then named Colchester District General Hospital, was opened by

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

on 20 May 1985. At the time, it had nine wards and 283 beds, built in groups around landscaped courtyards. The hospital has been expanded a number of times since its opening, and several new buildings have been added. This includes the Gainsborough wing, which opened in 2000. In 2014, the

trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust (law), a legal relationship in which one person holds property for another's benefit * Trust (bu ...

announced that the nearby Essex County Hospital was due to close, and that some services currently provided there would transfer to Colchester General Hospital, including breast services and nuclear medicine. In preparation for this, construction began on a new diagnostic imaging centre, which opened in 2018, in time for the transfer of services. It houses three

MRI Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to generate pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes inside the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and rad ...

scanners, one of which is wide bore, as well a PET-CT scanner, which will also be used by patients from the

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...

and

Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Colchester and Southend-on-Sea. It is located north-east of London ...

areas. In 2019, plans were approved to rebuild and extend the main entrance of the hospital. The Accident & Emergency department will also be expanded, and the narrow bridge across the lake in front of the hospital will also be replaced with a wider structure. On the weekend of 2–3 January 2021 hospital security removed people who were taking pictures of hospital corridors and posting them to social media.

chief executive Nick Hulme said that it "beggars belief" that some people were calling the pandemic a hoax. He said that hospital security had to "remove people who were taking photographs of empty corridors and then posting them on social media, saying the hospital is not in crisis".

Facilities

The hospital has a helipad, used by air ambulances and for military training.

Teaching

The hospital serves as a teaching hospital for medical students from

Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, commonly known as Barts or BL, is a medical school, medical and dental school in London, England. The school is part of Queen Mary University of London, a constituent college of the federal ...

and

Norwich Medical School Norwich Medical School is a medical school based at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, England. It is part of the Faculty of Medicine and Health sciences at the university. The first intake of students was in 2002. The school has a 5-year ...

Transport

Local bus routes 8, 84 and 84B, operated by

Arriva Arriva Ltd. is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England. The company was originally established on 24 October 1938 as T Cowie Ltd. Initially focused on the sale of motorcycles, it relaunched shortl ...

, and 61, 65 and 68, operated by

First First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

, serve the hospital, with a bus stop located outside the main entrance. There is also a Park and Ride service, run by

Essex County Council Essex County Council is the county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Essex in England. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the ceremonial county; the non-metropolitan county excludes Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock which ...

. The nearest railway station is

on the

Great Eastern Main Line The Great Eastern Main Line (GEML, sometimes referred to as the East Anglia Main Line) is a major railway line on the British railway system which connects Liverpool Street station in central London with destinations in east London and t ...

, located 1.6 miles from the hospital.

References

External links

*
Colchester Hospital
on the NHS website
Inspection reports
from the

Care Quality Commission The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom. It was established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care providers in England. It ...

{{authority control Colchester Hospitals in Essex NHS hospitals in England