The hospital's name originates from the Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital, which occupied the site from 1977 until its closure in 1995, and was named after Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. The military hospital was built on the site of the former Shrapnel Barracks and was a replacement for the Royal Herbert Hospital in Shooters Hill and Queen Alexandra Military Hospital. A new hospital was procured under a Private Finance Initiative contract to replace the military hospital and to accommodate services previously provided at Greenwich District Hospital and Brook General Hospital in 1998. The new hospital was built by Skanska at a cost of £84 million and opened in March 2001, being officially opened by the Queen on 11 December that year. In July 2012, Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health, announced that the South London Healthcare Trust, formed in 2009 was to go into special measures and become the first Trust to have an independent Administrator appointed. The Trust was subsequently disbanded by Jeremy Hunt, Lansley's successor as Secretary of State for Health. On 1 October 2013 it was transferred to Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust on the disestablishment of South London Healthcare NHS Trust. Following power cuts, water shortages and floods the trust applied to the Independent Trust Finance Facility, part of the Department of Health, for £48 million to repair the hospital in June 2016. It stated that "The infrastructure issues arise from unresolved legacy problems with the 60 year PFI agreement between the Meridian Hospital Company and the now dissolved Greenwich Health Authority, and derive from failures in specification and design standards, cost cutting at construction and contract terms that give the present trust limited redress against defects arising from the initial design and installation." The application was approved in November 2017. In April 2018, following the January 2018 liquidation of Carillion, renewed concern about privatised provision of services at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust prompted a petition, supported by the trade union GMB and local MP Matthew Pennycook, to bring 'soft' facilities services back in-house.
Criticisms
In February 2017, the South London Critical Care Network reviewed the hospital's intensive care department and found a complete lack of medical leadership. Care for patients across the trust could be affected because of issues with the critical care service. It was suggested that "younger fitter patients with single organ failure" would not be admitted to intensive care until they developed multiorgan failure because of pressures on bed availability. Only 3.5 full-time equivalent consultants were in post, with staff working locum shifts to fill gaps. "There was no ownership of the care of deteriorating patients in the wider hospital." Ear nose and throat surgeons in Lewisham would not go to Woolwich, so patients needing tracheostomy had to be sent to Lewisham for their operation.
