The Royal Surrey County Hospital (RSCH) is a 527-bedded District General Hospital on the edge of Guildford. It serves a population of 320,000 for emergency and general services and 1.2 million people from Surrey, Hampshire and West Sussex in cancer services. It is also a specialist centre for diabetes, ENT and maxillo facial surgery. Being situated close to the University of Surrey allows it to be on offer for research opportunities and pioneering treatments like fibrosis embolisation, brachytherapy and minimal access surgery.
The hospital has been at the heart of the community since it began in 1866 when it was the first voluntary hospital in Guildford, funded only by public donations. The RSCH has grown substantially since its opening in 1980 and in 1991 the Royal Surrey County Hospital became one of the first NHS Trusts. Now, it treats over 280,000 outpatients a year, 70,000+ Accident & Emergency patients, 61,000 admitted patients for treatment and nearly 3,500 babies are delivered there each year.
The Trust’s annual income to run its services is £199 million and it has 12 operating theatres, one obstetric and one minor operations theatre and a state of the art outpatient, audiology and rehabilitation department. The Trust has 20 wards comprising of general and specialist surgery, obstetrics, paediatrics, oncology, orthopaedics, general and specialist medicine, intensive care and coronary care. The hospital employs approximately 3,500 staff, with around 400 doctors and 800 nurses making it the second largest employer in Guildford.
The Trust has a very strong reputation for minimally invasive surgery and laparoscopic surgery which is used widely across the surgical specialties. It is a national leader in surgical training and laparoscopic surgery and MATTU (Minimal Access Therapy Training Unit) is one of the most advanced training centres for this type of surgery. It has also been designated as a national training centre for laparoscopic colorectal surgery.
Patients at the Royal Surrey also benefit from state of the art diagnostic equipment including two MRI scanners, four CT scanners, interventional radiology equipment and a gamma camera.
Over the course of a year between October 2006 to October 2007, a successful campaign was launched to save the RSCH, along with St Luke’s Cancer Centre from closure. The campaign attracted the support of over 100,000 local people through petitions, protests, publicity and lobbying at a local and national level.
Ade Lawal