Medical dates:

Medical character:

In 1971 it was announced that a new district general hospital would be built in Three Arch Road, Redhill, to replace the East Surrey Hospital in Shrewsbury Road.  However, after endless delays, with the project being constantly postponed, building work finally began in 1979.

When the new hospital was finally completed in 1983, Smallfield Hospital closed and its services transferred to the new building.

The £17m Hospital was formally opened on 3rd August 1984 by the Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher.  It was named the New East Surrey Hospital to avoid confusion with the East Surrey Hospital in Shrewsbury Road, which had closed in 1983, after transferring all facilities to Redhill General Hospital.

The new Hospital had 243 beds and was under the management of the East Surrey District Health Authority, part of the South West Thames Regional Health Authority.

The Hospital dropped the word 'New' from its title in 1986.

In 1991 a second phase of building works was completed at a cost of £12m, effectively doubling the size of the Hospital.  It enabled the transfer of services and final closure of Redhill General Hospital, which had not only absorbed the old East Surrey Hospital, but also Horley and District Hospital and Bletchingley Hospital.

The new building was formally opened in 1992 by Mrs Virginia Bottomley, the MP for South West Surrey.

On 1st April 1993, following a major reorganisation of the NHS and the introduction of the purchaser-provider Trust system in 1991, the Hospital came under the control of the East Surrey and Community Healthcare NHS Trust (later the East Surrey Healthcare NHS Trust).  It had 507 beds.

By 1996, when the Hospital had 454 beds, its address was changed from Three Arch Road to Canada Avenue.  A new Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department opened.

In 1998 the Hospital had 400 beds.  Later in the year, the East Surrey Healthcare NHS Trust merged with the Crawley and Horsham NHS Trust to form the Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust.

In June 2000 the Secretary of State for Health approved the Trust's plan to move all acute services from Crawley Hospital to East Surrey Hospital, but suspended the transfer the following year, when the Trust was £10m in debt.  

In 2002 the A&E Department had to be temporarily closed for one day as so many patients were waiting on trolleys for admission.  The Department was also not open for 999 calls.

In 2003 the Hospital had 419 beds.

On 1st March 2004 a psychiatric room was established in the A&E Department, to be run jointly by the Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust and the Surrey Oaklands NHS Trust (later Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust).  The room contained two exit doors, safe furniture, ambient lighting and an emergency call button, in line with the recommendations of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

In July 2004 the A&E Department took over the workload when the A&E Department at Crawley Hospital finally closed.

In February 2009 the Ophthalmology Department received a new scanner for optical coherence tomography, funded mainly by the Friends of East Surrey Hospital, who gave more than £50,000.  The previous year the Friends had donated £374,000 towards a CT scanner for the Imaging Department.

By October 2009 the Hospital was regarded, on financial criteria, as one of the least successful  in the country, featuring in the bottom eight of 570 NHS Hospitals.  It had suffered from successive management changes and its finances were in disarray.  It did not fare much better the following year, with the Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust now £12.2m in debt.

In February 2010 the A&E Department acquired a real-time ultrasound scanner to enable speedier diagnosis of suspected aortic aneurysm or internal injuries following a road traffic accident.  Again, the Friends had donated generously - some £35,000 towards the cost of the machine.  In May 2010 a 1.5 Tesla wide-bore magnetic resonance imaging scanner was installed, at a cost of £1.7m, the first in the United Kingdom. It was hoped that the machine, with a diameter of 70 cm instead of the regular 60 cm, would enable claustrophobic or larger patients to be examined.

Present status (February 2011)

The Hospital provides a wide range of services.  It is the major acute hospital for east Surrey and northwest Sussex, with a 24-hour Accident & Emergency Department.  It is also the designated hospital for major emergencies at Gatwick Airport and on the M23.

The Redwood Elective Centre, for 'cold' (non-emergency) surgery is also located in the Hospital.

Update:  June 2013

A new Endoscopy Suite opened in December 2011 as part of the Hospital's £14m redevelopment scheme.  The Suite contained a preparation room, 4 admission rooms, 4 procedure rooms and male and female wards of 6 beds each. (It was formally opened by Princess Alexandra in June 2012.)

In April 2012, as part of the redevelopment scheme, two new surgical wards - Copthorne and Charlwood - opened in a modular building, which took just seven months to build.  Each ward had 20 beds, organised into four 4-bedded rooms and 4 single rooms.

During 2012 a new main entrance for the Hospital was completed and the A&E Department enlarged by 30%.  Hazelwood Ward, for medical cases, was refurbished.

In June 2012 the Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust was named as one of 21 NHS Trusts in serious financial trouble, with a £150m deficit.  Nonetheless, in July, it was announced that a radiotherapy unit was to be installed at the Hospital by the end of 2013, at a cost of £10m, in partnership with the Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.  The unit is to be staffed by radiographers from St Luke's Cancer Centre at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford, and would enable patients to be treated locally instead of having to travel to Guildford.

In May 2013 a new birthing unit opened in the Maternity Department, following a £25m investment by the Department of Health into the country's maternity facilities.  The new unit consists of 4 en-suite rooms with birthing pools.  The rooms are softly lit and the walls are covered with photographs of woodlands and flowers, to produce a calming effect.