Russells Hall Hospital

Story

Russells Hall Hospital is an NHS general hospital located in Dudley, West Midlands, England, run by The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust.The hospital is situated south-west of the town centre on the A4101 road, which connects to the Kingswinford area of the borough. It was first planned in the 1960s as a general hospital for Dudley and the surrounding area.The first phase of the hospital opened in 1976 as a laundry centre for the borough's hospitals, and the general hospital buildings were built within the next five years, but a shortage of equipment meant that it did not open to patients until March 1984, becoming fully operational in May that year. The new hospital included an accident and emergency unit to replace those at the Guest Hospital in Dudley and the Corbett Hospital in Stourbridge. Around this time, the NHS first began to consider the closure of Dudley Guest Hospital.In 1992, plans were unveiled for Russells Hall to be expanded as part of plans to close Wordsley and Dudley Guest hospitals, as well as parts of the Corbett Hospital. There was much protest against this, and over the next few years there were several amendments to the proposals - including a move which would have seen Wordsley Hospital keep its maternity services but for all other services to relocate to Russells Hall.In April 1998, however, it was decided that Wordsley Hospital would close completely and Corbett and Dudley Guest would be downsized to out-patient services only, with Russells Hall being expanded to include all of the borough's in-patient services. The first phases of the work were completed in 2004 and the expansion was completed during 2005, by which time Russells Hall had doubled in size. Much of the existing hospital was also refurbished. The Princess Royal opened the revamped hospital on 22 February 2006 – 22 years after she had opened the original hospital.