Whipps Cross Hospital in the 1960s
By 1965, management of the hospital had moved from the old Leytonstone Group Hospital Management Committee to the Forest Group Hospital Management Committee, working closely with smaller local hospitals including Wanstead, Harts, Woodford Jubilee, Connaught and Thorpe Coombe Maternity Hospitals.
At Whipps Cross, outpatient facilities expanded to include orthodontics (1960) and child psychiatry (1961). New twin theatres and a central sterile supplies department opened in 1965, with a regional eye unit in 1966 and a genito-urinary ward in 1968.
In 1968, an intensive care unit was established at the hospital. In 1968, the teaching of nurses from other hospitals in the Forest Group was consolidated at a new Nurses' Teaching Unit.
Medical Education Centre
In 1965, one of the first medical education centres (MEC) in the country was opened. The Centre provided continued education for hospital doctors, dentists and general practitioners and quickly became known for its training course for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS), which is still offered today.
Funding for the MEC came a variety of sources including the King's Fund, the Whipps Cross Hospital League of Friends, and Whitbread Ltd.
Barts Health NHS Trust Archives, RLHWX/P/3/17
Forest House
Since the transfer to West Ham Borough Council in 1930, Forest House had become a home for elderly people. By the late 1950s, the house and its stable buildings were still home to a large number of non-acute male patients, cared for by a matron and staff. Eventually, Forest House was closed and replaced in 1962 by a new building in the grounds, Samuel Boyce Lodge. Forest House was eventually demolished in 1964, its marble Adam fireplace having previously been moved to the main administrative block of the hospital, seen in this photograph.
The Woodbury Unit, a 36-bed psychogeriatric facility, was later built on the former grounds of Forest House.
Barts Health NHS Trust Archives, RLHWX/P/3/24/1
