St Helier Hospital


St Helier Hospital in the London Borough of Sutton is run by Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust along with Epsom Hospital. It is located next to the large St Helier council estate and close to the major intersection known as Rosehill.
The hospital offers a full range of hospital services including a 24-hour accident and emergency department. The site is also home to the South West Renal and Transplantation Service and the Queen Mary's Hospital for Children, a dedicated children's hospital. St Helier Hospital is a major teaching hospital for St George's, University of London, and is a main teaching site for medical degrees.

History

The hospital was commissioned in 1934 when Surrey County Council acquired a 999-year lease of 10 acres of land on the St Helier council estate which had been named in honour of Mary Jeune, Baroness St Helier, a prominent alderman on the London County Council. Queen Mary laid the foundation stone for the new hospital in March 1938. It was designed by Saxon Snell & Phillips, who were chosen for their experience in hospital design, in the thirties modernist style. It received its first patients in February 1941 during Second World War.
Less than a month later, the hospital was damaged in a bombing raid by a parachute mine. John Major, the former Prime Minister was born in the hospital in 1943. Further damage was caused in later raids and the hospital was struck by two flying bombs in June 1944. St Helier Hospital remained functional throughout the War and was painted green to make it less visible to German bombers in the latter years of the war. It joined the National Health Service in 1948.
The Queen Mother visited the hospital in 1963, during the hospital's jubilee year and, in 1987, Diana Princess of Wales opened the new maternity unit. Services were transferred from Queen Mary's Hospital for Children in 1993. St Helier Hospital came under the management of the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust in 1999.
In November 2013, as part of the Better Services Better Value Review of NHS services in London, the Trust proposed the downgrading of the maternity and Accident and Emergency Departments.

Services

The main building is divided into three blocks: A, B and C. The other buildings are:
The nearest London Underground station is Morden Underground station, from which there are frequent buses to the hospital via Rose Hill. Some of the buses that stop outside the hospital are the 151, 157, S1 and S4. The nearest National Rail station is St Helier station which is slightly less than one mile from the hospital, although this is infrequently served.

Notable births