Saint Thomas' Home , Saint Thomas' Hospital

Saint Thomas' Home is the part of Saint Thomas' Hospital which provides for private paying patients. The principle of accepting paying patients was accepted by the Governors in November 1878 after much controversy, as it was thought to be an infringement of the charter of 1551 which had constituted the Hospital as a house of the poor. However, more income was needed if the poor were to be properly served and the Hospital to be made financially secure.

Two wards named 'Adelaide' and 'Alice' were opened as Saint Thomas' Home in March 1881. The charges were 8 shillings a day in a general ward and 12 shillings a day in a private room. The Home proved a success, especially with patients who did not have homes of their own at which they could be nursed - for example, clerks living in lodgings, visitors in London, or colonists returned to England for medical care.

On the completion of Gassiot House in 1906 the Home moved into the bottom two floors. It was closed to patients on the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, and the space was used to house members of the administrative and medical staff. It reopened in 1950 in Gassiot House, and in 1966 moved to Simon Ward in the East Wing of the new hospital buildings.