St James's University Hospital

Description

About Us
Affectionately referred to as Jimmys the building is generally regarded as Europes largest teaching hospital has a world renowned reputation as a centre for medical research and education

It is home to a number of specialist units providing care for patients from across the Yorkshire region and beyond

For example St Jamess houses the Yorkshire regional transplant service providing tertiary services for kidney transplants and is also a designated national site for adult liver transplantation

The St Jamess Institute of Oncology based in the new pound220 million Bexley Wing was officially opened by HRH The Princess Royal in summer 2008 This striking building provides a worldclass service to patients from across the region and replaced outdated facilities formerly provided at Cookridge Hospital

In 2010 older peoples services and acute medicine were centralised at the hospital as part of a complex scheme which saw childrens hospital services from St Jamess moved across the city to join those at Leeds General Infirmary

History

History
The hospital we now know as St Jamess started life in a very different form as the Moral and Industrial Training School run by the Poor Law Guardians for the Township of Leeds a building opened in October 1848 in what is now part of Lincoln Wing

At this time it stood isolated on the brow of a hill surrounded by open countryside Ten years later the Poor Law Guardians resolved to bring all Workhouse relief in Leeds into one new Institution the Leeds Union Workhouse Now known as Ashley Wing and noted for its splendid facade the building today houses the Thackray Medical Museum

The new Workhouse accommodated 784 paupers who existed under a spartan regime of work in return for food and accommodation with discipline rigorously applied by the Master who was responsible to the Guardians Nearby was built the Chapel in byzantine style whilst the building which now houses Chemical Pathology at St Jamess was commissioned in 1862 to accommodate quotlunatics from Wakefieldquot

Many of the inmates were sick and feeble and in 1874 the Leeds Union Infirmary was built on the site of what is now Gledhow Wing The staff consisted of one medical officer a male nurse and a female nurse with other duties undertaken by ablebodied paupers By 1881 there were an average of 400 patients in the Infirmary every day and nursing and medical care was beginning to improve although staff shortages were common as many nurses for example preferred to work in voluntary hospitals

Attitudes were changing by the end of the 19th century when many pauper children were sent to start new lives in Canada The Workhouse and Industrial school buildings were given over to caring for the sick poor of the city and new buildings were erected along Beckett Street

The outbreak of a ferocious war in Europe in 1914 meant that Leeds had to play its part in caring for the thousands of casualties pouring back from battles on the Western Front In March 1915 the Guardians offered the War Office use of the Workhouse and Infirmary to care for sick and wounded servicemen in what was to be renamed the East Leeds War Hospital Remaining inmates were transferred to the Hunslet Workhouse

After the war the days of the Workhouse were numbered and in 1925 the Poor Law Infirmary was finally renamed St Jamess Hospital By this time the once green fields surrounding the institution had been swallowed up by a vast complex of backtoback houses and an almost constant pall of smoke hung over the area

By the outbreak of the Second World War many new facilities at St Jamess were nearing completion These included a new operating theatre suite massage and electrotherapeutic department nurses training school and pathology unit In this war it was expected there would be large numbers of civilian casualties from air raids and many wards were left empty for this purpose but were never needed

When the National Health Service was formed in 1948 the role of St Jamess was again enhanced and the hospital began to develop many more specialisms One of the first ever Consultant Geriatric Physicians in the UK was appointed at the hospital in December 1950 recognising changing attitudes towards the aged sick

By 1963 the Regional Hospital Board produced an ambitious plan to redevelop the whole hospital This move led to the construction during the late 1960s and mid 1970s of many of the parts we are familiar with today including Chancellor Wing Beckett Wing and the very large ninestorey Gledhow Wing

The end of the 1960s also saw an important milestone for St Jamess which for years had been in the shadow of the older institution across the city the Leeds General Infirmary An expansion of the Leeds Medical School led in October 1970 to St Jamess being officially named as a university hospital