Charing Cross Hospital

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charing Cross Hospital is a hospital in London, England. It was established in 1823 as the West London Infirmary, and was originally located in Villiers Street, near Charing Cross in the heart of the metropolis. It is now located several miles to the west of the city centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

The institution had its origins in a meeting initiated by Dr Benjamin Golding in 1818. The infirmary provided accommodation for twelve beds, and became known as Charing Cross Hospital in 1827. A new building was opened in Agar Street in 1834 with accommodation for twenty-two medical students, and was extended several times. After the second world war it was decided that the hospital should move out of cental London, and in 1957 a link was proposed with Fulham and West London Hospitals. The new Charing Cross Hospital was opened in 1973 on Fulham Palace Road, on the site of the old Fulham Hospital.

It is one of the Imperial College School of Medicine's teaching hospitals and is part of the Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust. It is a tertiary referral centre for Neurosurgery, and is a national centre of excellence for gestational trophoblastic disease.

The Reynold's Building, which lies adjacent to the hospital within the campus, consists of a lecture theatre and various teaching rooms used by the Imperial College School of Medicine. In addition to this, it houses the Reynold's Bar, a centre for the various functions that the medical school holds.