Patients and visitors
Chapel Allerton Hospital
Harehills Lane,
Leeds,
West Yorkshire,
LS7 4SA
(0113) 2623404
Number of beds: 186
Services
Breast clinic, chemical pathology and metabolic medicine, clinical haematology, clinical health and psychology, cytogenetics laboratory, elderly services, gastro-intestinal medicine, gastro intestinal surgery, neuro-rehabilitation, orthopaedics, physiotherapy, radiology, rheumatology.
Background
The present Chapel Allerton Hospital was opened in 1994 by HRH the Duchess of Kent.
The Chapel Allerton Orthopaedic Centre (CHOC) opened in the hospital in early 2005 and is the Trust's dedicated centre for the diagnosis, management and treatment of adult patients with upper and lower limb complaints.
Since it was established, the service has helped to dramatically reduce waiting times for orthopaedic treatment and cut the length of stay following inpatient treatment for joint replacements by half.
History
The original Chapel Allerton Hospital was opened in May 1927 by HRH Princess Mary, and was located in the grounds of the stately mansion of Gledhow Grove, off Harehills Lane, with the house itself also being used as part of the site.
The hospital, run by the Ministry of Pensions, was built in response to the continuing needs of the thousands of servicemen who suffered grievous wounds during the 1914-1918 war.
Costing £130,000, it provided a total of 200 beds and was designed to cater for former military personnel from Yorkshire, East Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, replacing the old military hospital at Beckett's Park in Leeds.
Equipment in the new hospital included two operating theatres, X-ray, a massage and electrical department and a bacteriological library. Wards were strictly segregated between officers and other ranks, as was the custom at that time.
As war clouds gathered in Europe again in the late 1930s, hasty thought was given to the need to expand facilities at Chapel Allerton Hospital. It was feared, wrongly as it turned out, that casualties in the new conflict would be on the scale of those seen in the First World War.
Eight hutted wards were accordingly built in 1940, and the nurses' home was expanded. Wartime casualties hurt at battles from Dunkirk the D-day and beyond were treated at the hospital, but fortunately the numbers maimed were much less than in the previous conflict.
After the war, Chapel Allerton Hospital passed from the Ministry of Pensions to the Ministry of Health in 1953. With the gradual decrease in numbers of war pensioners needing treatment, the hospital took on a more general role, for example in caring for pre-convalescent cases.
During the 1960s, a new outpatients department, X-ray plus therapy and pathology departments and a 4-bedded cardiac monitoring unit all opened.
By the 1970s, serious concern was being expressed at the state of parts of the hospital, and total closure was one option discussed. Instead, a new £1.2m development, the Newton Green Wing, was given the go-ahead, and was officially opened in 1975 by Sir Keith Joseph. Designed to care for elderly patients, with six wards and a day hospital, this was located away from the main Chapel Allerton site, on the other side of Harehills Lane.
The future of the rest of the hospital remained in some doubt until 1991, when the newly created United Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust secured approval for the reprovision of the old parts of the hospital. This was to be built on to the existing Newton Green Wing, and would result in the closure of the original site.
The new Chapel Allerton Hospital (the Newton Green Wing name having disappeared) was begun in 1992 and completed in record time two years later.
Chapel Allerton Hospital was the first in Leeds to be designed with works of art commissioned as part of the building project, and numerous striking features can be seen in and around the hospital.
The old hospital, after standing empty for some time, has now largely been demolished, and new housing is being built on the site. The mansion, a listed building with many original 19th century features, survives.