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Description

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Womens health and the health of their babies is a specialist field Were dedicated to it So weve concentrated an outstanding range of expertise and experience in one organisation here in Liverpool

Were geared to offering the highest standards of healthcare in maternity services gynaecology gynaecology oncology neonatology reproductive medicine and genetics services And as one of only two such specialist trusts in the UK and the largest womens hospital of its kind in Europe were equipped to give you the professional and personal care you deserve

As a teaching hospital Liverpool Womens NHS Foundation Trust is a centre of excellence in the provision of both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education and training and is associated in this task with the University of Liverpool Faculty of Medicine The Trust is also actively involved in the training of nurses midwives and other professional staff

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History

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Today Liverpool Womens is a concentration of highly specialised skills experience and facilities Yet before 1995 those capabilities were spread much more widely To see how it all came together we need to look at the histories of three earlier hospitals in Liverpool

The Liverpool Maternity Hospital

In 1796 a group of publicspirited Liverpool ladies realised something was lacking for the female population of the rapidly developing port They accordingly set up a charity to provide medical care and assistance with childbirth to reputable married women and widows resident in the town

This early example of specialisation did not operate in a hospital but took doctor and midwife services to patients homes It carried on its valuable activity independently for almost 90 years

About halfway through that period perhaps prompted by the Ladies Charity efforts the council opened its own LyingIn Hospital The two organisations ran side by side for decades until the overlapping capabilities were amalgamated into the Brownlow Hill LyingIn Hospital in 1884

The busy port was now a city demanding suitable facilities for its inhabitants As a result the LyingIn Hospital evolved through updating resiting and renaming into the Liverpool Maternity Hospital The new improved model opened on Oxford Street in 1926 as the largest voluntary maternity hospital in Britain

The Womens Hospital

The original LyingIn Hospital treated all aspects of womens health but gradually medical opinion turned against mixing maternity patients with other operative cases due to the risk of infection A committee started raising funds for a separate nonmaternity establishment and in 1883 the Special Hospital for Women opened in Shaw Street

Interest in specialist treatment for women was clearly growing in Liverpool at the turn of the twentieth century Yet another such hospital the Samaritan opened in Upper Warwick Street in 1895 and moved to Upper Parliament Street in 1900

Once again as both hospitals developed it became clear that amalgamation would mean greater efficiency In due course the two became one the Liverpool and Samaritan Hospital for Women later retitled the Womens Hospital The Duchess of York opened the new building in Catharine Street in 1932

Mill Road Hospital

The local Board of Guardians built the West Derby Union Workhouse Hospital in 1852 for the sick poor of the parish It became Mill Road Infirmary in 1891 and operated from then on as a general hospital for around fifty years

The Second World War put an end to all that The Infirmary was badly bombed and in 1941 patients were transferred from the damaged building to Broadgreen Hospital What was left was restored and upgraded in 1947 but now as a specialist gynaecology and obstetric hospital rather than a general infirmary It continued as Mill Road Hospital until the early 1990s By then exciting plans were under way for a huge step forward in womens health care in Liverpool and Mill Roads services were wound down in anticipation

The Birth of Liverpool Womens

In 1985 administration of these three famous hospitals was assumed by the Liverpool Obstetric and Gynaecology Unit The Unit became an NHS Trust in 1992 and changed its title to Liverpool Womens Hospital NHS Trust in 1994

Then in 1995 the Trusts new pound30M hospital for women and babies was launched concentrating the three hospitals historic capabilities in one establishment In time the Trust absorbed the Aintree Centre for Womens Health which provides gynaecology and antenatal care and in 2005 became Liverpool Womens NHS Foundation Trust the first trust in Merseyside to achieve foundation status