Records of Heatherwood Hospital, Ascot

1 Administrative records
2 Patient records
3 Chaplains' records
4 Miscellaneous

C/EM84 Heatherwood Hospital Special School managers' minutes, 1949-1961

C/AR/P3/44 Plans for Special School, 1951

Records in other collections

London Metropolitan Archives Records, 1929-1948; including minutes, 1934-1948; register of patients, 1931-1934; building plans, 1935-1939.

Heatherwood Hospital was founded in 1922 as a hospital for children of First World War veterans suffering from tuberculosis and orthopaedic diseases. It was opened by the United Services Fund in a mansion formerly called Heatherfield.In 1934 it was passed to the London County Council, and became a specialist hospital for children and young people with surgical tuberculosis (TB), with its own special school and much treatment taking place outdoors. During the Second World War it was used as a general hospital for patients evacuated from London.It became part of the National Health Service in 1948, and was managed as part of the Windsor Group. As TB declined, the hospital continued to specialise in orthopaedics and eventually became a general hospital. Accident and emergency, out-patient, physiotherapy and hydrotherapy facilities were opened in 1961, a maternity department in 1972, and a mental health and geriatric unit in 1988.The children's ward closed in 1994, and paediatric care became a day unit. The maternity unit (known as the Ascot Birth Centre) closed in 2011 and the minor injuries and mental health units closed in 2014.The hospital moved to new purpose built premises in 2022. At this date it specialised in providing planned, non-emergency operations for orthopaedics, plastics, ophthalmology and lithotripsy. Outpatient services included gynaecology, urology, cardiology and orthopaedics, supported by endoscopy, physiotherapy, phlebotomy and radiology units.The former building was expected to be demolished and the site used for housing.A history of the hospital is available online at https://www.heatherwoodhistory.org.uk/hospital01.html (accessed 10/5/23).