Alder Hey Children’s Hospital lies in the West Derby area of Liverpool, one of the largest children’s hospitals in the United Kingdom. It operates as an NHS foundation trust and is part of a cluster of specialist hospitals across the Liverpool City Region, alongside institutions including the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool Women’s Hospital, Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, the Walton Centre, Mersey Regional Burns and Plastic Surgery Unit and Clatterbridge Cancer Centre.
From Mansion to Military Hospital
The land was originally occupied by a mansion called Alder Hey, which local poor law guardians acquired in 1910 for use as a children’s home. By 1914 it had been converted into a military hospital, and during the First World War the United States Army established Camp Hospital 40 on the site, operated by Hospital Unit Q and then Unit W. American records often place Alder Hey within Liverpool’s Knotty Ash area. The site again treated injured military personnel during the Second World War. A landmark in British medical history came in 1953 when the Liverpool Neonatal Surgical Unit opened here – the first neonatal intensive care unit in the United Kingdom, brought about largely through the work of paediatric surgeon Isabella Forshall. In 1990, when Myrtle Street Children’s Hospital closed after more than a century of operation, Alder Hey absorbed its A&E department. The hospital authority became an NHS trust in 1991, and a Ronald McDonald House for the families of sick children opened on site in 1993.
Scandal, Reform and a New Era
1999 brought a defining and difficult moment when an inquiry was launched into the Alder Hey organs scandal, examining the hospital’s practices around the removal and retention of human tissue. The inquiry’s findings had far-reaching consequences across the UK and directly drove the passage of the Human Tissue Act 2004. In August 2008 the Royal Liverpool Children’s NHS Trust became an NHS foundation trust, adopting the name Alder Hey NHS Foundation Trust. Between 2010 and 2014 the number of doctors employed at the trust grew from 269 to 344. In March 2017 the trust was confirmed as one of four additional NHS Global Digital Exemplars.
A Hospital Built in a Park
Alder Hey marked its centenary in 2014, the final year it operated from its original buildings. A new hospital was procured under a Private Finance Initiative contract and constructed in neighbouring Springfield Park by Laing O’Rourke at a cost of £187 million. Work began on 26 March 2013 and the hospital opened in October 2015. It was the first children’s hospital in Europe to be built within a park. The original Alder Hey buildings were largely demolished and the land was returned as parkland for the surrounding community.