Northern General Hospital


The Northern General Hospital is a large teaching hospital and Major Trauma Centre in Sheffield, England. Its departments include Accident and Emergency for adults, with children being treated at the Sheffield Children's Hospital on Western Bank. The hospital is managed by the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

History

The hospital has its origins in the Fir Vale workhouse and infirmary for which the foundation stone was laid in 1878. When it opened in September 1881 the infirmary block had capacity for 366 patients. A ward for treating women with venereal diseases was established in the 1890s. The infirmary block was re-built and became the Sheffield Union Hospital when the workhouse was renamed the Fir Vale Institution in 1906. The Sheffield Union Hospital became the Fir Vale Hospital and the Fir Vale Institution became Fir Vale House a few years later.
In 1930 the names changed again and the Fir Vale Hospital became the City General Hospital and Fir Vale House became the Fir Vale Infirmary. The City General Hospital performed the world’s first heart valve replacement operation in 1955 before it merged with the Fir Vale Infirmary to form the Northern General Hospital in 1967. The hospital was the main receiving station for the victims of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989.
On 1 November 1991, operation of Northern General Hospital was transferred from the Sheffield Health Authority to the newly-created Northern General Hospital NHS Trust. Lodge Moor Hospital was closed in 1994, with the treatment of chest and spinal injuries transferring to the Northern General Hospital. On 1 April 2001, the Northern General Hospital NHS Trust merged with the Central Sheffield University Hospitals NHS Trust to form the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which was later awarded Foundation status on 1 July 2004.
A post-operative surgical unit costing £21.3 million was opened in summer 2008. In June 2016, a new £2 million helipad, funded by the Sheffield Hospitals Charity and located close to the accident and emergency department, opened at the hospital.

Services

The hospital consists of a series of buildings and wings, many of which are named after significant families and individuals from Sheffield, particularly in the steel industry:
The critical care department contains the intensive care unit, the high-dependency unit and the post-operative surgical unit while the Clock Tower Building contains the finance department, dining facilities, the volunteers’ office, medical secretaries, security, human resources and the hospital's museum. An out of hours GP centre for patients with minor illnesses alleviates pressure on the accident and emergency department.

Transport

The hospital is served directly by First South Yorkshire and Stagecoach Yorkshire buses mainly.
First South YorkshireStagecoach Yorkshire
1a, 3, 20, 75, 76, 97, 981, 88, 2

There is also a specific service that travels between the two main trust sites, the H1.