Darlington Memorial Hospital

Darlington Memorial Hospital provides acute services for the area around Darlington, South Durham and parts of North Yorkshire. Its quality of services and use of resources were rated 'good' by the HealthCare Commission Ratings.

The Hospital is run by (and serves as the headquarters of) the County Durham and Darlington Foundation NHS Trust, which achieved Foundation Trust status in 2007.

Services provided: Accident and Emergency, Maternity/SCBU, Childrens Ward, Trauma and Orthopaedics, General Surgery (Day Surgery, Elective Surgery and Emergency Surgery), Acute Medical, Chemotherapy, Intensive Therapy Unit(ITU), High Dependancy Unit(HDU), Coronary Care (CCU), Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) Unit and Eye Unit.

The main 'wards block' is the most modern and distictive part of the hospital. It has a basement a ground floor and 6 further floors. It contains all the wards in the hospital, the eye and ENT departments, the pathology department, the lexture Theatre and library, the food services, restaurant and some administrative facilities.

To the front of this is a 3 storey building which contains accident and emergency, the main outpatients, theatres, Radiography department, and physiotherapy. The pharmacy and domestics are in the basement of this building.

The site also contains 'the Womens Centre' and a large portion of the offices for the health trust. The hospital also has a laundry on the site.

Other facilities include a childcare centre of the doctors and a social club which is also used as a venue for the general public to hire.

Childrens psychology is still provided in the 'Mulberry Centre.' However this is now managed by the mental health and learning disability trust for the area. The former adult mental health unit at the hospital has been relocated at the modern West Park Hospital on the outskirts of Darlington and the building has been taken over my Darlington Memorial Hospital.

Recently The Stoke Rehabilitation unit has been relocated to Bishop Auckland General Hospital, however Darlington still continutes to treat acute stroke patients. In recent years much of Bishop Aukland's maternity beds have been transfered to Darlington.

There are some services such as neurosurgery, heart surgery and radiotherapy which are not provided at Darlington Memorial Hospital. The super-sized James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough is the region's designated hospital for these specialties. The hospital also provides no intermediate care for Rehab patients. The most of these are treated at Bishop Auckland General Hospital and the Richardson Community Hospital in Barnard Castle.

While this hospital is designated for Eye and Ear Nose and Throat, University Hospital of North Durham in Durham City deals with plastic surgery, vascular surgery and dermatology.

Darlington Memorial Hospital also takes the traumas, emergency surgery cases, and babies needing special care baby unit treatment from the Bishop Auckland catchment area.

History

The first hospital in the Durham records to open in Darlington was the Hundens Lane isolation Hospital in the 1800s. Soon after this Darlington Hospital and depensary opened on Russel Street and after it closed it became used as a Conservative club. Greenbank maternity hospital opened in the late nineteenth century and on Skinnergate in 1915 a Red Cross hospital was treating patients however I am not able to specify the exact years this hospital opened and closed. Darlington Memorial Hospital was officially opened in 1933 by The Duke of York, (who later became King George VI). Many people gathered to see its official opening. The 'Memorial Hall' is the only remaining part of the original hospital and is a listed building and stands behind the war memorial which existed before the hospital did. It is now used for occupational health, the personnel department and the training and development offices. Much of the older buildings lay where you now find the visitor's carpark. Hundens Lane Hospital Later became an ear nose and throat hospital before its closure. Greenbank Maternity hospital also closed and both are now demolished.

The 'New Hospital' was officially opened in 1980. Most of the beds are now in 6 bedded single sex bays with toilets and shower facilities. There are no 'Nightingale' wards remaining.