The hospital has its origins in a facility at Farnham Road which opened in 1866. The hospital moved to Egerton Road in Guildford in 1979. The new hospital was officially opened by the Queen in February 1981; following the closure of St. Luke's Hospital, she returned to open the St Luke's Wing at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in February 1997. A successful campaign to save the Royal Surrey County Hospital from closure was launched in October 2006.
Facilities
It serves a population of 330,000 for general services and up to 2 million for cancer services. The Royal Surrey is also a specialist centre for diabetes, ENT and maxillo facial surgery. It is situated close to the University of Surrey allowing it to offer opportunities for research and pioneering treatments such as fibroid embolisation, brachytherapy and minimal access surgery. The Royal Surrey County Hospital was one of the first NHS Trusts in 1991. It treats around 500,000 patients a year – 74,000 Accident and Emergency, 90,000 in-patients and day-patients and 336,000 outpatients. There are also therapists, scientific and technical and support staff. The Trust has 20 wards comprising general and specialist surgery, obstetrics, paediatrics, oncology, orthopaedics, general and specialist medicine, intensive care and coronary care, with 527 beds in total. There are 13 dedicated surgical theatres, one obstetric and one minor operations theatre and state of the art outpatient, audiology and rehabilitation departments. The trust has an aseptics unit which manufactures radiopharmaceuticals and other medication. It is licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. After the agency raised concerns about staffing, quality systems and documentation production was suspended in November 2019. Guildford and Waverley Clinical Commissioning Group organised a programme of in-reach GPs in 2015, where GPs were placed in wards of the hospital reviewing patients who had been admitted and advising on possibilities for discharge.
Performance
It was named by the Health Service Journal as one of the top hundred NHS trusts to work for in 2015. At that time it had 3141 full time equivalent staff and a sickness absence rate of 3.08%. 72% of staff recommend it as a place for treatment and 65% recommended it as a place to work. As of 2017 one sixth of all posts are vacant. Since January 2016 Royal Surrey missed targets for giving patients X-rays, scans and other diagnostic tests within six weeks. In March 2017 7.4% of patients needing such tests were delayed more than six weeks – way above the 1% target. In 2016–17 6% of patients were not tested on time, among the worst cases in the NHS.
