Countess of Chester Hospital

The Countess of Chester Hospital is the main NHS hospital for the English city of Chester and the surrounding area. It currently has 625 beds, general medical departments and a 24-hour accident and emergency unit. It is managed by the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, one of the first Foundation Trusts in the UK, formed in 2004. Cardiac rehabilitation services at the hospital are provided by Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

History
The hospital has its origins in the "Cheshire Lunatic Asylum" which opened on part of the site in 1829. The name of the facility changed to "County Mental Hospital" in 1921, to the "Upton Mental Hospital" on joining the National Health Service in 1948, and then to the "Deva Hospital" in 1950.

By 1948, Chester Royal Infirmary specialized in surgery and out-patients and the City Hospital, Hoole, in chronic illnesses, chest, maternity, paediatric, and general medical cases. Pre-war plans for the expansion of the Infirmary were eventually revived. In 1963 a large out-patient and casualty department was opened at the infirmary; this was accompanied with the completion of the Chester inner ring road in 1967. However, after the creation of the West Cheshire HMC (hospital management committee), a fresh decision was taken to focus all the hospital services for the district at a purpose-built site on Liverpool Road, adjacent to the county mental hospital facilities.

In 1968, the new site was renamed the "West Cheshire Hospital". The maternity unit at the City Hospital was transferred to a new building at the south end of the site in 1971. With the opening of a new general wing and A&E department in 1983, several surgical departments from the Royal Infirmary were relocated to the new buildings. On 30 May 1984, West Cheshire Hospital was officially renamed the Countess of Chester Hospital by Charles and Diana, then the Prince and Princess of Wales and also Earl and Countess of Chester. In 1993, the Royal Infirmary site was closed after its remaining departments were transferred to the Countess. The City Hospital, which had become a 120-bed geriatric unit, was closed in 1994 after its services were taken over by the Countess in 1991.

In January 2006, the CARE building, sometimes known as Outpatients Four, opened and started providing new facilities the Cardiac Catheter Laboratory, Department of Clinical Audiology, Renal & Urology Department and ENT Department.

In 2007, the Countess of Chester became the first hospital in the UK to completely ban smoking for both workers and patients. In April 2014 a new two-storey wing was opened containing a state of the art 21 bed Intensive Care Unit on the first floor, replacing the old HDU and ITU wards. On the ground floor is an expanded endoscopy unit and the bariatric outpatients department.

Lucy Letby case
In August 2023, Lucy Letby, a neonatal nurse who had worked at the hospital several years earlier, was found guilty on seven charges of murder and seven charges of attempted murder following a lengthy trial over the collapses and deaths of babies who were being cared for on the hospital’s neonatal ward during 2015 and 2016. The jury concluded that Letby carried out the attacks by injecting babies with air or insulin, overfeeding them and physically assaulting them with medical equipment.

The trust came under scrutiny following Letby's conviction as it was revealed management had protected Letby when consultants at the neonatal unit expressed their suspicions asked them to remove her from frontline duties. She was not removed from frontline duties until the summer of 2016, and remained on clerical duties until her initial arrest in July 2018. Hospital management did not report their suspicions to the police until May 2017, despite claiming that they were already having their suspicions about her conduct some 18 months earlier.

Supporters of Letby’s alleged innocence have also criticised hospital management online for “scapegoating” Letby.

The ward was downgraded following the final suspicious collapses and deaths over the summer of 2016, resulting in the highest dependency babies no longer being treated there.

Services
Part of the old mental health hospital building, now called the 1829 Building, serves as headquarters for West Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, and various other NHS support organisations. The Bowmere mental health hospital is on the same site, as is Ancora House, a purpose-built Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services unit.

In April 2019, it announced that it would no longer provide elective treatment for Welsh patients because the Welsh government were not prepared to pay the full costs. The Welsh government have not increased the tariff for NHS procedures in line with NHS England, so the trust is paid about 8% less for patients from Wales. Rising waiting lists mean the trust can increase the work it does for English patients, which is more remunerative.

Performance
Before becoming a foundation trust in 2004, the trust received top 3-star rating in the former national performance charts. In 2016, the CQC rated the hospital as requiring improvement. The Trust lost the contract for sexual health services when Cheshire West and Chester Council awarded it to East Cheshire NHS Trust in December 2014. From 2015 to 2016 the trust cancelled urgent operations 37 times – the highest number of any NHS trust in England.