Harefield Hospital is a health institution in

Harefield Harefield is a village in the London Borough of Hillingdon, England, northwest of Charing Cross near Greater London's boundary with Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the north. The population at the 2011 Census was 7,399. Har ...

London Borough of Hillingdon The London Borough of Hillingdon () is a London borough in Greater London, England. It forms part of outer London and West London, being the westernmost London borough. It was formed in 1965 from the districts of Hayes and Harlington Urban Distr ...

, England. It is managed by the

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS foundation trust of the English National Health Service, one of the prestigious Shelford Group. It runs Guy's Hospital in London Bridge, St Thomas' Hospital in Waterloo, Evelina London Child ...

History

The first hospital on the site was the No. 1 Australian Auxiliary Hospital established during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

to treat injured Australians and New Zealander soldiers. After the war

Middlesex County Council Middlesex County Council was the principal local government body in the administrative county of Middlesex from 1889 to 1965. The county council was created by the Local Government Act 1888, which also removed the most populous part of the cou ...

decided to use the site to build a series of single-storey pavilions which opened as the Harefield Sanatorium in October 1921. Work started on a more permanent structure in 1935 and the new building was opened on 8 October 1937 by the

Duke of Gloucester Duke of Gloucester ( ) is a British royal title (after Gloucester), often conferred on one of the sons of the reigning monarch. The first four creations were in the Peerage of England and the last in the Peerage of the United Kingdom; the curre ...

, with many of the wards featuring large open areas to give patients access to the fresh air. The hospital 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. Amongst the hospital's roll call of distinguished cardiologists were Paul Wood and

Walter Somerville Walter Somerville Order of the British Empire, CBE (1913–2005) was an Irish cardiologist who played a leading role in heart surgery at London's Middlesex Hospital, Middlesex and Harefield Hospital, Harefield hospitals. For twenty years, Somer ...

. Arguably, the hospital's most famous surgeon was Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub, who performed the UK's first heart and lung transplant at Harefield in 1983. Under the leadership of Sir Magdi Yacoub, the Harefield Hospital transplant programme had begun in 1980 and by the end of the decade he and his team had performed one thousand of the procedures, while the hospital had become the leading UK transplant centre. In a January 2008 press release, the trust announced that Harefield Hospital had become the leader in the south east of England for treating acute heart attack patients with primary angioplasty and

coronary stent A coronary stent is a tube-shaped device placed in the coronary arteries that supply blood to the heart, to keep the arteries open in patients suffering from coronary heart disease. The vast majority of stents used in modern interventional ca ...

insertion to reduce the length of hospital stays. In the 2010 staff survey conducted by the Care Quality Commission, one staff member in five (of those who responded to the survey) reported having been the subject of discrimination and one in fifty having been assaulted at work by a fellow staff member. However, "only a minority of staff said they felt work pressures, with four-fifths of employees adding they would recommend the trust as a place to work or receive treatment."

Facilities

The hospital advertises as being "one of the largest and most experienced centres in the world for

heart The heart is a muscular Organ (biology), organ found in humans and other animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels. The heart and blood vessels together make the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrie ...

and

lung transplant Lung transplantation, or pulmonary transplantation, is a surgical procedure in which one or both lungs are replaced by lungs from a donor. Donor lungs can be retrieved from a living or deceased donor. A living donor can only donate one Lobes of t ...

s" and having "jointly pioneered work in the development of '

artificial heart An artificial heart is a artificial organ, device that replaces the human heart, heart. Artificial hearts are typically used as a bridge to heart transplantation, but ongoing research aims to develop a device that could permanently replace the ...

s' (also known as left ventricular assist devices or LVADs)". The grounds of the hospital also house the Harefield Heart Science Centre, where research is performed into the causes and treatments of heart disease.

References

External links

Harefield Hospital

Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation TrustHarefield Heart Science Centre
{{coord, 51.607, -0.483, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Hospital buildings completed in 1937 NHS hospitals in London Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Hillingdon Specialist hospitals in England

History

Facilities

See also

References

External links