St Richard's Hospital

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St Richard's Hospital is a medium-sized District General Hospital located in Chichester, West Sussex, England. It is now part of Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.Originally built in 1938 and expanded during World War II the hospital is located to the north of Spitalfield Lane in the northeast of the city. It has approximately 430 beds, including six ITU beds, a high dependency unit and a maternity unit. There is an accident and emergency department. The Chichester Treatment Centre was recently opened which treats patients on a day care basis. The hospital has an NHS fertility clinic which also treats some private patients. A new children's ward was opened in February 2011.The hospital has a staff of 2,500 and survived the threat of downsizing or closure as part of the NHS Strategic Health Authority's 'Fit For The Future' proposal which ended in 2009.The original building at St Richard’s Hospital was built in 1938-39 by West Sussex County Council. It had 194 beds for elderly and infirm people, but at the beginning of the war in 1939, the Government declared it an Emergency Medical Service General Hospital. By 1940, 10 hutted wards were added, taking the number of beds to 400.In the post-war period, the Postgraduate Medical Education Centre opened on the hospital site in 1966 and in 1970 new accident and emergency, outpatient, x-ray and maternity departments were opened, and two additional operating theatres added.Donald Wilson House, the hospital’s neurological rehabilitation unit, opened in 1975 and two years later the hospital added its intensive care unit and coronary care unit.