Willesborough Hospital

The William Harvey Hospital is a hospital in Willesborough, Ashford, Kent, England. It is one of the three main hospitals in the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Trust area and is named after William Harvey (1578–1657), the Folkestone-born doctor who discovered the blood circulatory system.HistoryThe hospital replaced an older hospital to the west of town that had been running since 1928. It was planned as part of an overall plan to expand Ashford and the surrounding area by relocating people away from London in the late 1960s. The government decided the existing hospital infrastructure would not be able to cope, and set about locating a site away from Ashford town centre, with a proposed area of around and a budget of £7–8 million. Work started on building the hospital in 1973, and it was commissioned in 1977 and opened in 1979. The old hospital remained open as a smaller unit, and by the 1980s it had become a hospital for the elderly.The hospital currently employs about 2,500 people and has 476 beds as of March 2012. It includes a shop run by the Friends of the William Harvey Hospital, a volunteer run society that provides basic goods and services to patients and visitors, and has raised £2.5 million in donations for the hospital. The Rotary Suite of the hospital is run by Spencer Private Hospitals, providing private treatments such as cosmetic surgery. This provides an additional revenue stream for the hospital.

Tags: Hospital/Clinic