Queen Margaret Hospital, Dunfermline

Queen Margaret Hospital is located in Dunfermline and one of two main hospitals in the kingdom of Fife. Queen Margaret caters for Dunfermline and the West Fife catchment area. The hospital has 21 wards, with five car park areas situated around the building to the east, south and west and an energy park to the north-east.^[4] The hospital is currently run by NHS Fife.

History

The first phase of Queen Margaret opened in 1985,^[3] although maternity services were still being dealt with at the Dunfermline Maternity Hospital. The hospital was praised by many people, when first opened, as one of the finest and modern in the UK.^[3] Michael Forsyth backed a plan for a £32 million second phase of Queen Margaret to be built in 1988, which was given the green light and work began in 1991.^[5][6] The local newspaper, Dunfermline Press fought hard to preserve a full service maternity unit for the area from being re-located to the Forth Park Hospital in Kirkcaldy.

Upon completion of the new hospital, The Princess Royal, officially opened the second phase in 1993 with all of Dunfermline's hospital facilities now being dealt with on one site for the first time.^[3][6] This resulted in the immediate closure of three Dunfermline hospitals: Milesmark, Dunfermline and West Fife District Hospital and the Dunfermline Maternity where the latter is now used for business use.^[7] The hospital received NHS Trust status in 1994.^[8]

Facilities

Services

Queen Margaret has the following facilities. This include: endocrine and diabetes medicine, breast disease, in-patient nephrology and in-patient urology, maxillofacial and ophthalmic surgery. Acute surgical patients, making the hospital the trauma care for fife and outpatient antenatal care is also based here. Queen Margaret has a minor injury service since January 2012, when A&E services were centralised to Kirkcaldy.^[9] The hospital has CT scanning and eight operating theatres.^[2]

A convenient shop, cafe, a gift shop and ATM are also located on the hospital grounds.^[8]

Voluntary groups are also based in the hospital. These include: Friends of the Queen Maragaret Hospital; British Red Cross and Women's Royal Voluntary Service.^[8]

Public transport

Queen Margaret is located north east of the city centre on Whitefield Road.

There are direct routes to this hospital by bus from Rosyth, Inverkeithing and Dunfermline Bus Station. Additional services from Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes Bus Stations are available. There are two bus stops to be found to the east and four to the north of the hospital site.^[4]

A railway station is within a ten-minute walk which serves this hospital, although this is a largely unstaffed and non-ticket office station.

Reorganisation of services within Fife

Originally the plan by the NHS fife acute hospital trust was to downgrade Victoria and move these to Queen Margaret, but when the A&E department in Victoria Hospital (Kirkcaldy) was salvaged, the decision has since been reserved. Currently, NHS fife acute hospital trust want to centralise Victoria as the main hospital in Fife receiving the bulk of acute services and to downgrade Queen Margaret by 2011.^[10] There has been major concern for the future of the site. Many protests and petitions have occurred in favour of keeping Queen Margaret open in Dunfermline.

Reception area

In March 2014 work began on a new reception area aimed at making the entrance to the hospital more welcoming.^[11]

Radio West Fife

Radio West Fife is the current hospital radio service broadcasting to Queen Margaret Hospital. They are known to offer requests to hospital patients and provide live commentary from Dunfermline Athletic Football matches. The hospital radio is based in Queen Margaret Hospital - in the old Nurse's bank office near to Ward 8.

References

External links

• NHS Fife
• The Courier (Dundee)
• National Rail