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Description

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About Us
Birmingham Womens NHS Foundation Trust provides a range of health care services to women and men across the West Midlands and beyond

We have 149 adult beds and 43 neonatal cots with an annual income of pound80million On average the Trust looks after 50000 patients a year and we carry out over 3000 operations We employ over 1500 staff and in the last year we delivered over 7000 babies Our waiting times are low and we are proud to have reported no cases of MRSA bacteraemia and Clostridium Difficile in the past seven years This year we have been awarded an Annual Health Check rating from the Care Quality Commission of Good for Quality of Services clinical and nonclinical and Excellent for Financial Management The Trust has also received Excellent results for the 2009 PEAT patient environment action team Inspection with excellent ratings for cleanliness food and privacy amp dignity

Vision and Mission
Our Trust vision provides the framework for our mission statement strategic goals and five year plan We face some exciting challenges and an exciting future Changes in national and local health policy and potential service reconfigurations in the region mean we will need to continue to adapt and evolve our services in order to ensure we continually meet the needs of the people we serve As a specialist Trust we will do this by

Providing excellent healthcare for women and their babies Our care will continue to be focussed on patient needs We will support the health of women through their pregnancy childbirth and the postnatal period Our care will range from highly specialist clinical interventions to personal focussed care for women with uncomplicated low risk births Our care for the mother will continue to be complemented by support for babies including specialist neonatal care where clinically required

Supporting fertility and gynaecological health We will provide focussed services for women and their partners who need medical or surgical healthcare either because they may be trying unsuccessfully to conceive or because of disorders with the female reproductive system

Providing a focussed range of highly specialist clinical and clinical support services where our specialist focus can ensure they are regional and ultimately national centres of excellence These include the fields of laboratory and clinical genetics perinatal pathology and specialist fields of perinatal medicine for example fetal medicine

The theme that draws our services together is specialisation hence our ambition to continue being UK leaders in a limited number of clinical areas In some cases being the best will simply mean providing high quality person focussed support for local people in one of the most important events in their lives childbirth in others it will mean some of the most specialist doctors nurses and other clinical staff providing tertiary and even quarternary care

Our unique position as a focussed provider with a limited range of service allows for a real organisational focus on our specialised services Our mission is clear

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History

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A Brief History
The Birmingham Womens Hospital has a proud history of compassion and expertise that stretches back over 125 years

the early years

In 1871 Birmingham surgeon Robert Lawson Tait and four of his colleagues founded a new venture the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Women which was to be a hospital devoted entirely to quotthe alleviation of diseases peculiar to womenquot It was only made possible after a public meeting with the support of prominent members of the community

With only eight beds and overwhelming popularity the first hospitals capacity proved totally inadequate In 1878 the hospital moved to a converted farmhouse in Stratford Road Sparkhill boosting capacity to 21 beds But with the demand for treatment ever increasing in 1904 the Hospital President Mr Arthur Chamberlain laid the foundation stone of a new purposebuilt hospital in Showell Green Lane

With the help of generous donations and subscriptions the hospital continued to grow in capacity diversity and expertise

the 1900s

In 1907 Loveday Street Maternity Hospital was opened in the city centre followed by Sorrento Maternity Hospital on Wake Green Road in 1929 further enriching the healthcare available to women Both these hospitals gave first class services to women until their respective closures in 1968 and 1993 transferring entirely to the Birmingham Maternity Hospital

The Birmingham Maternity Hospital Edgbaston was opened in 1968 the result of plans first formed over 30 years before It encouraged more mothers to have their babies in hospital leading to an overall drop in the mortality rate for mothers

bringing us up to date

After major refurbishment was completed in 1995 the new Birmingham Womens Hospital was officially opened at a special ceremony by the Duchess of Gloucester in 1996 Since the inception of the Birmingham Womens Healthcare NHS Trust in 1994 the hospital has continued to set standards for the treatment of women

To assist in making the hospital feel more like a home an 18 month charity appeal raised over pound700000 to provide those extra comforts that make it a place that women and their families choose first and where people want to work One hundred and twentyfive years after the opening of the first hospital dedicated to womens healthcare the viability of that original vision has triumphantly been proven