| St Bartholomew's Hospital | |
|---|---|
| Barts Health NHS Trust | |
 The King Henry VIII Gate at Barts was completed in 1702 | |
  Shown in the City of London | |
| Geography | |
| Location | West Smithfield,London, England |
| Coordinates | 51°31′03″N0°06′00″W / 51.5175°N 0.1001°W /51.5175; -0.1001 |
| Organisation | |
| Care system | National Health Service |
| Type | Teaching |
| Affiliated university | Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry |
| Services | |
| Emergency department | No |
| Beds | 387[1] |
| History | |
| Opened | 1123; 902 years ago (1123) |
| Links | |
| Website | www |
St Bartholomew's Hospital, also known asBarts, is ateaching hospital located in theCity of London. It was founded in 1123 byRahere, and is currently run byBarts Health NHS Trust.
Barts was founded in 1123 byRahere (died 1144, and entombed in the nearbyPriory Church of St Bartholomew the Great), a favourite courtier ofKing Henry I. Thedissolution of the monasteries did not affect the running of Barts as a hospital, but left it in a precarious position by removing its income. It was refounded byHenry VIII in December 1546, on the signing of an agreement granting the hospital to theCorporation of London.[2]
The hospital became legally styled as the "House of the Poore in Farringdon in the suburbs of the City of London of Henry VIII's Foundation", although the title was never used by the general public. The first superintendent of the hospital wasThomas Vicary, sergeant-surgeon to King Henry, and an early writer on anatomy.[2] It was here thatWilliam Harvey conducted his research on the circulatory system in the 17th century,Percivall Pott andJohn Abernethy developed important principles of modern surgery in the 18th century, andMrs Bedford Fenwick worked to advance the nursing profession in the late 19th century.[3]
From 1839 to 1872, the mortality reports show that surgical trauma and postoperative infection were the greatest causes of death. Tuberculosis, however, remained the most fatal nontraumatic cause of death.[4] Nurses were expected to work 12 hours a day, and sometimes 14, with meal breaks in 1890. They had 2 weeks annual holiday.[5] Upon the creation of theNational Health Service in 1948, it officially became known as St Bartholomew's Hospital.[6]
Barts is the oldest hospital in Britain still providing medical services which occupies the site it was originally built on, and has an important current role as well as a long history and architecturally important buildings. The Henry VIII entrance to the hospital continues to be the main public entrance and features a statue ofHenry VIII above thegate.[7]
Its main square was designed byJames Gibbs in the 1730s. Of the four original blocks, three survived; they include the block containing the Great Hall and two flanking blocks that containedwards. The first wing to be built was the North Wing, in 1732, which includes the Great Hall and thecanvas paintings byWilliam Hogarth. The South Wing followed in 1740, the West in 1752 and finally the East Wing in 1769. In 1859, a fountain was placed at the square's centre with a small garden.[2]
St Bartholomew's Hospital has existed on the same site since its founding in the 12th century, surviving both theGreat Fire of London andthe Blitz. Its museum, which is open Tuesdays to Fridays every week, shows how medical care has developed over this time and explains the history of the hospital. Part-way around the exhibition is a door which opens on to the hospital's official entrance hall. On the walls of the staircase are two canvases painted by William Hogarth,The Pool of Bethesda (1736) andThe Good Samaritan (1737). They can only be seen at close quarters on Friday afternoons. Hogarth was so outraged by the news that the hospital was commissioning art from Italian painters that he insisted on painting the canvases without a fee, as a demonstration that English painting was equal to the task.The Pool of Bethesda is of particular medical interest, as it depicts a scene in which Christ cures the sick: display material on the first floor speculates in modern medical terms about the ailments from which Christ's patients in the painting are suffering.[8] The canvases are to be restored in 2023, with a grant from theNational Lottery Heritage Fund.[9]
The room to which the staircase leads is the hospital's Great Hall, a double-height room inBaroque style. Although there are a few paintings inside the Great Hall, nearly all are on movable stands: the walls themselves are mostly given over to the display of the very many large, painted plaques which list, in detail, the sums of money given to the hospital by its benefactors.[10]
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the hospital precincts of the ancient priory were redesignated as anAnglicanecclesiastical parish, withSt Bartholomew-the-Less becoming theparish church – a unique situation amongst English hospital foundations. St Barts-the-Less is the only survivor of five chapels originally within the hospital's estate, the others failing to survive the Reformation. The church has a 15th-century tower and vestry, and its connections with the hospital can be seen not only in its early-20th centurystained glass window of a nurse, a gift from theWorshipful Company of Glaziers, but also in commemorative plaques adorning its interior.[11]
Throughout the whole of the 19th century, the Hardwick family were major benefactors of the hospital.Thomas Hardwick Jr. (1752–1825),Philip Hardwick (1792–1870), andPhilip Charles Hardwick (1822–1892) were all architects/surveyors to Barts Hospital. Philip Hardwick, aRoyal Academician, was also engaged in the rebuilding of the Church of St Bartholomew-the-Less in 1823 and donated the fountain in the hospital's courtyard.[12]
By 1872, Barts contained 676 beds. About 6,000 in-patients were admitted every year, as well as 101,000 out-patients. The average income of the hospital was £40,000 (derived chiefly from rents and funded property) and the number of governors exceeded 300.[2]
In 1993 theTomlinson Review of London hospitals concluded that there were too many hospitals in central London and recommended that the service should be delivered closer to where people lived. Barts was identified as a hospital with a catchment area that had a low population[13] and the hospital was threatened with closure.[14] A determined campaign was mounted to save the hospital by theSave Barts Campaign, supported by staff, residents, localMPs and theCity of London Corporation.[15]
Some facilities were retained, but theaccident and emergency department closed in 1995,[16] with facilities relocated to theRoyal London Hospital (a hospital in the same trust group, but a couple of miles away inWhitechapel). A minor injuries unit was established at Barts for small cases (which often represent a significant part of the workload of A&E services) but urgent and major work goes to other hospitals.[16]
.jpg)
A plan was formulated for Barts to develop as a centre of excellence incardiac care and cancer. The plan came under threat when it was announced that the works would be procured under aprivate finance initiative contract; theSave Barts campaign continued to protest.[17] The opposition subsided and a new Barts Heart Centre[18] and new cancer care facilities were created.[19] The Queen Mary Wing was demolished and the façade of the George V building was retained within a new hospital building. A new main entrance was established on King Edward Street. The three James Gibbs blocks were refurbished and car parking was removed from the area.[20] The works, which were designed byHOK[21] and undertaken bySkanska at a cost of circa £500 million, were completed in early 2016.[22]
Barts continues to be associated with excellence at its medical school's significant research and teaching facilities on theCharterhouse Square site.[23] Barts, along with theRoyal London Hospital andLondon Chest Hospital, was part ofBarts and The London NHS Trust. There are 388 beds in Barts and 675 beds in the Royal London. These hospitals amalgamated with Whipps Cross and Newham hospitals on 1 March 2012 to form theBarts Health NHS Trust.[24]
In 2018,Nuffield Health, a not-for-profit healthcare organisation, was granted planning permission to redevelop the former pathology and residential staff quarters building into a newprivate hospital. It is the only private hospital in theCity of London, and has 48 beds and 4 operating theatres. It opened in 2022, at a cost of £60 million. It is physically and operationally separate from the rest of the hospital, and known asNuffield Health at St Bartholomew's Hospital.[25]
In 1843, St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College was established to train medics although considered to have been started byJohn Abernethy when the hospital built a theatre for his lectures at the beginning of the century.[26] In 1995 the college, along with that attached to the Royal London, merged intoQueen Mary University of London, but maintains a distinctive identity. It is now known asBarts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. It occupies some space at the Barts site inFarringdon, with a presence a short walk away atCharterhouse Square. The main preclinical teaching domain of the medical school is atWhitechapel in the award-winningBlizard Building.[27]
The present School of Nursing and Midwifery was formed in 1994 from merging the Schools from St Bartholomew's Hospital and theRoyal London Hospital to become theSt Bartholomew School of Nursing & Midwifery. In 1995 the new School was incorporated into theCity University.[28][29] Both Schools have a strong and respected history dating back over 120 years and have produced many nurse leaders and educators. The School has since been incorporated into theSchool of Health Sciences, City University London.[30]
St Bartholomew's Hospital museum tells the historical narrative of the hospital and its work in caring for the sick and injured. The museum collections include historicsurgical instruments, sculptures, medieval archives, and works of art, including paintings byWilliam Hogarth. The museum is located under the North Wing archway. It closed in September 2023 for renovation works, expected to last through 2024.[50] The collections are searchable on theBarts Health NHS Trust online catalogue, which contains information on over 50,000 entries and covering an 800-year span.[51]
Also on the site is the Barts Pathology Museum, which has over 4,000 medical specimens on display[52] and has been described by CNN as one of the "world's 10 weirdest medical museums".[53] The museum is open only by appointment and for special events.[52] Both museums are part of theLondon Museums of Health & Medicine group.[54]
A chemical laboratory at Barts was the location of the initial meeting ofSherlock Holmes andDr. Watson inArthur Conan Doyle's 1887 novelA Study in Scarlet.[55] Barts was Watson's alma mater. This fictional connection led to a donation by the Tokyo "Sherlock Holmes Appreciation Society" to the Save Barts Campaign in the 1990s.[56]
In 2012, the final episode of the second series of the BBC dramaSherlock, "The Reichenbach Fall", had Holmes appearing to have deliberately leapt to his death from the roof of St Bartholomew's as a surrogate for thewaterfall of the original story "The Final Problem". The hospital was again used as the location for the resolution to Holmes' faked suicide, in the first series three episode "The Empty Hearse".[57]
London Buses routes4,8, 17,25, 45, 46, 56, 59, 63, 76, 100, 153, 172, 242, N8, N63 and N76 serve the hospital, with bus stops located outside or near the hospital. The nearestUnderground stations areBarbican andFarringdon on theCircle,Hammersmith & City andMetropolitan lines andSt Paul's on theCentral line. Farringdon is also served byThameslink trains.[58]
Since 2022 Bedrock Radio (a registered charity)[59] broadcasts to St Bartholomew's Hospital and widerBarts Health Trust.[60] Bedrock replaced Whipps Cross Hospital Radio (WXHR) who formally served the Trust from 1969 to 2022.[61]
 |
|
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |