Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
The Park Hospital, Hither Green, was opened as a fever hospital on 8 November 1897 by the Metropolitan Asylums Board. It was one of five new fever hospitals built by the Metropolitan Asylums Board in the 1890's in response to the rapidly growing numbers of patients seeking admission to its fever hospitals which had now been disconnected from the poor law and where treatment was provided free of charge. In 1930 on the abolition of the Metropolitan Asylums Board all its hospitals and other responsibilities were taken over by the London County Council, who continued to run Park Hospital as a fever hospital with, in 1939, an authorised bed complement of 632. In 1948 Park Hospital became part of the National Health Service under the control of the Lewisham Group Hospital Management Committee of the South East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board. Its name was changed to Hither Green Hospital in 1957.
In September 1953 the hospital was visited by King Edward's Hospital Fund for London, who prepared a brief report on the hospital (ref.: A/KE/735/36) which by now had been reduced in size to 500 beds. The King's Fund Visitors described it as "a fever hospital which is now used to a limited extent for medical and skin cases. It also has a ward for tonsil and adenoid operations. All the patients, except the latter, came through Emergency Bed Service. There is no waiting list. The wards are the usual airy, if rather bleak, fever hospital wards. They have a number of poliomyelitis cases in the hospital and are endeavouring to build up a poliomyelitis unit. They treat the patients from the acute stage right through to their rehabilitation for which purpose an orthopaedic surgeon and a physiotherapist attend the hospital".
On the reorganisation of the NHS in 1974, Hither Green Hospital, by now described as an acute hospital, became part of the Lewisham District of the Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham Area Health Authority (Teaching). On the abolition of area health authorities in 1982 it became the responsibility of Lambeth and North Southwark Health Authority.
By September 1992 the hospital had come under the control of Guy's NHS Trust. Only part of the hospital was still in use, for elderly patients and psychiatric cases.