Royal Free Hospital
The Royal Free Hospital (also known simply as the Royal Free) is a major teaching hospital in the Hampstead area of the London Borough of Camden. The hospital is part of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, which also runs services at Barnet Hospital, Chase Farm Hospital and a number of other sites. The trust is a founder member of the UCLPartners academic health science centre.
Royal Free Hospital
Facilities[edit]
The Royal Free Hospital has a high-level isolation unit equipped to treat highly infectious diseases such as Ebola virus disease.[14] In 2014, the British nurse William Pooley was successfully treated for Ebola virus disease at the unit.[14] In December 2014, Pauline Cafferkey, a British health worker diagnosed with Ebola in Glasgow was transferred to the unit for treatment.[15] The unit has also previously been used to treat a patient with Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever.[16]
Significant advances in the fields of liver medicine (hepatology) and transplantation; renal disease and dialysis; haematology and haemophilia have been made at the Royal Free, and the trust now treats all patients needing dialysis in north and central London. The department of liver medicine is recognised as one of the leading research units of its type in the world: it was founded by Professor Dame Sheila Sherlock.[17]
Performance[edit]
The hospital was rated 'good' by the Care Quality Commission in September 2017.[18] In a report of the Care Quality Commission completed in May 2019, Royal Free Hospital's overall surgical safety rating was downgraded from "good" to "requires improvement", due to a "large number" of "never events"—incidents so serious they should never have happened—which were partially related to "poor behaviours" by a few consultants at the Royal Free London NHS Trust and failures of the Trust's management.[19]
Transport[edit]
The Royal Free is near Belsize Park tube station and Hampstead Heath railway station, and on several bus routes. There are limited car parking facilities.[20]
Notable staff[edit]
Rachael Annie Cox-Davies, matron from 1905 to 1922 and founding member of the Royal College of Nursing[21]
