The Tunbridge Wells Hospital is a large hospital in Pembury, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. The hospital is located north-west of the village on Tonbridge Road.
A new hospital has been built by Laing O'Rourke on the same site at a cost of £226 million. Building work started in 2008.[1] The first phase of the new hospital opened in January 2011, the rest of the hospital opened on the 21st September 2011, all services were transferred from the Kent and Sussex Hospital. The new hospital has been denied a "Royal" prefix.[2]
The new hospital is the first acute NHS hospital in Britain where every inpatient has their own room with en-suite facilities, with ceiling to floor windows revealing views over surrounding woodland. The maternity unit will see nearly 100 babies born every week and the A&E department will treat 50,000 patients every year. [1]
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The hospital is located on Tonbridge Road, around 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north-west of Pembury, close to the A21 trunk road. It is surrounded by woodland on three sides.
The site was first developed in 1836 by the Tonbridge Poor Law Union as a workhouse (a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment). The building was designed by John Whichcord to accommodate 400 inmates. The two-acre site at Sandhill, Newbars Wood was chosen after the preferred site at Bo-Peep, Pembury was considered too expensive.[3]
Further buildings and extensions followed,[3] including:
The workhouse became Pembury County Hospital in 1938.
All of the existing hospital buildings are being demolished as part of the development of the new hospital, except for the Grade II listed chapel.
The new Pembury Hospital has replaced both the Pembury County Hospital and the Kent and Sussex Hospital. It has 512 beds and provides a full range of clinical services including an Accident and Emergency department. The first department to transfer to the new hospital was the maternity department, with the first baby being born in the new unit in January 2011.[4]
The new hospital has been named 'The Tunbridge Wells Hospital'. There is considerable local resistance to this name change, particularly as the new Hospital isn't in Tunbridge Wells at all.