Crawley Hospital

Crawley Hospital
Sussex Community NHS Trust
The Green Wing with the Urgent Treatment Centre entrance on West Green Drive
Shown in Crawley
Geography
Location	West Green Drive, West Green, Crawley, West Sussex, England, United Kingdom
Coordinates	51.116606°N 0.197443°W / 51.116606; -0.197443
Organisation
Care system	National Health Service
Type	General
Affiliated university	None
Patron	None
Services
Emergency department	No Accident & Emergency
Beds	143
History
Opened	1961 (present building)
Links
Lists	Hospitals in England

Crawley Hospital is a National Health Service hospital in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. Since 2006 it has been part of the Sussex Community NHS Trust, which has overall management responsibility. Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust also provides some services.^[1] The hospital is located in the West Green neighbourhood of Crawley, near the town centre.

History

Crawley grew slowly as a small market town until the Second World War. Until 1896, the only medical treatment available was offered in Horsham, 7 miles (11 km) away, under the provisions of the various Poor Laws. A cottage hospital with six beds was established that year;^[2] by 1913 it had been extended to a nine-bed facility,^[2][3] and there were 12 beds and an operating theatre in 1922.^[2] The hospital was paid for by public donations and fundraising;^[3] patients paid as much as they could afford for treatment.^[2]

These premises became too small, and a new "district hospital" was established at Ifield Lodge in West Green—then a mostly residential area west of Crawley High Street—in the 1930s.^[2] In 1947, Crawley was selected as one of the sites for the Government's proposed New Towns—planned communities designed to accommodate people moved out of London, which was overcrowded and war-damaged.^[4] The master plan allocated land in the southeast of the development area for a large new hospital, and the 1930s facility was expected to be demolished.^[5] Both Crawley Urban District Council (the forerunner of the present Borough Council) and Crawley Development Corporation (the body responsible for planning and developing the New town) supported this proposal, but the regional health authority preferred building a new hospital on the existing site. A public inquiry upheld this demand in 1958, and construction work on a new building started the following year.^[5]

The first part of the building was completed in 1961^[5] or 1962.^[6] Extensions were built between 1966 and 1970 and in 1981.^[5]

Originally, a full range of services was provided: outpatient care, an Accident and Emergency department and a maternity unit.^[5] Funding cuts and the opening of a new hospital in nearby Haywards Heath affected the hospital's status, however, and for a period during the 1990s it was threatened with closure.^[7] In 1998 the NHS Trust responsible for the hospital merged with that of East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, Surrey, which was developed as the main facility: services such as Accident and Emergency provision and maternity care were concentrated there over the next few years,^[8] and Crawley was downgraded to "sub-acute" status.^[7][9] By 2004, however, the Trust had provided services for cancer patients and children, and in July that year a new 24-hour "Walk-in Centre" was opened, offering an inferior level of service to the former Accident and Emergency department. This was changed in 2007 to an Urgent Treatment Centre.^[7] In 2008, paediatric surgery was moved to East Surrey Hospital.^[10]

An ambulance station was built in 1963 on Exchange Road in Crawley town centre. It had moved to West Green by the 1980s,^[5] and is now operated by the South East Coast Ambulance Service.^[11]

Architecture

The Yorke Rosenberg Mardall architectural partnership, led by F. R. S. Yorke and noted for its Modernist hospital designs, received the commission for the hospital. Architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, writing in 1965, praised the building, describing it as "easily the best building in Crawley up to date".^[6] It is a three- to four-storey reinforced concrete structure clad with dark steel, white tiles, red glazed bricks and large areas of glass.^[6]

See also

• Healthcare in Sussex

References

1. "Crawley Hospital". Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust website. Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust. 23 May 2008. Retrieved 19 February 2009.
2. Hudson, T. P., ed. (1987). "A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 3 – Bramber Rape (North-Eastern Part) including Crawley New Town. Ifield: Local government and public services". Victoria County History of Sussex. British History Online. pp. 67–68. Retrieved 18 February 2008.
3. Lowerson, John, ed. (1980). "K: Triumphs of Voluntaryism". Crawley: Victorian New Town. Falmer: University of Sussex, Centre for Continuing Education. p. 36. ISBN 0-904242-14-5.
4. "New Town History". Crawley Borough Council website. Crawley Borough Council. 2005. Archived from the original on 16 December 2018. Retrieved 18 February 2009.
5. Hudson, T. P., ed. (1987). "A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 3 – Bramber Rape (North-Eastern Part) including Crawley New Town. Crawley New Town: Public services". Victoria County History of Sussex. British History Online. pp. 89–91. Retrieved 18 February 2008.
6. Nairn, Ian; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1965). The Buildings of England: Sussex. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. p. 205. ISBN 0-14-071028-0.
7. Moffatt, Laura (2008). "Chronology of Laura Moffatt's Involvement with the Reconfiguration of Acute Health Services at Crawley Hospital" (PDF). Laura Moffatt (Labour Member of Parliament for Crawley) website. Labour Party. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 February 2009. Retrieved 19 February 2009.
8. "Setback for Pease Pottage hospital campaigners". Crawley News website. East Surrey & Sussex News and Media Ltd and Courier Media Group Ltd. 31 January 2009. Archived from the original on 5 May 2013. Retrieved 20 February 2009.
9. "London Deanery: South East and South West of London and Kent, Surrey and Sussex programmes. Specialist Registrar training programme: Geriatric Medicine and General Internal Medicine" (DOC). London Deanery prospectus. London Deanery. July 2005. p. 27. Retrieved 20 February 2009.^{[permanent dead link‍]}
10. "Paediatric surgery axed at Crawley Hospital". Crawley Observer website. Johnston Press Digital Publishing. 28 August 2008. Retrieved 20 February 2009.
11. "GP joined by Crawley Urgent Treatment Centre Lead and Ambulance Service in recent podcast about winter demands". Sussex Community NHS Trust. 25 October 2018. Retrieved 6 December 2018.