The first hospital on the site was St Anthony's Chapel and Lazar House, a facility built for lepers in 1473. It closed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the mid-16th century. The current hospital has its origins in the Small Pox and Vaccination Hospital, built in 1848. It was designed by the architect Samuel Daukes as one of two isolation hospitals in London intended to care for smallpox patients during the epidemic at that time. After smallpox treatment services transferred to Clare Hall Manor at South Mimms in 1896, a large new infirmary building was officially opened by the Duke and Duchess of York as the Highgate Hill Infirmary in 1900. It became the Islington Infirmary in 1914 and it was taken over by the London County Council in 1930 and renamed St Mary's Hospital. In 1948 St Mary's Hospital amalgamated with the Highgate Hospital and the Archway Hospital to form Whittington Hospital. The combined facility was named after Sir Richard Whittington, an English merchant, who had left a large sum to charitable causes supporting people in need. In 1977, a new block containing accident and emergency and outpatient facilities opened on the St Mary's Wing site. Further expansion took place when patients from the former City of London Maternity Hospital transferred to the St Mary's Wing site in 1983. The Great Northern Building, containing modern wards and education facilities, was completed on the St Mary's Wing site in 1992. In 1998, the Archway Wing was sold to University College London and Middlesex University allowing them to form the Archway campus and, in 2004, the Highgate Wing was chosen by Camden and Islington Community NHS Trust as the site for Highgate Mental Health Centre. With all clinical activities being consolidated on the former St Mary's Wing site, a new clinical block and main entrance on Magdala Avenue were procured under the private finance initiative contract. The works, which were undertaken by Jarvis Construction at a cost of £30 million, were completed in 2006.
Performance
Following an inspection in December 2015 of the Trust and its services, Whittington Health was rated as Good by the Care Quality Commission in July 2016 – with caring rated as Outstanding. The Trust has a current deficit of £5.9m for the year ending 2016/17 – £200k worse than its planned position.
