Still standing and serving the county

1:47pm Tuesday 1st July 2008

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Who would have thought, 180 years ago, when a new hospital was built in Brighton, it would still be in the same place today?

The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton must be one of the most intensively developed National Health Service sites in Britain.

Not only is it the main hospital for the Brighton area but it also contains the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital and several other special departments.

Yet it would not have remained on its site in Eastern Road had many leading players had their way in the 1970s and 1980s.

There was a determined lobby in favour of building a new hospital on a site at Falmer, since earmarked for a new Brighton and Hove Albion football ground.

But others considered it was too far from the centre of Brighton and financial pressures also played a part in ensuring the hospital stayed where it was.

The long and fascinating story has been well chronicled by Harry Gaston in a new book called Brighton's County Hospital 1828-2007. Few people are better qualified to write such a history since he edited the house journal of hospitals in Brighton for 40 years.

It all started when Brighton developed from a small fishing village into a national resort during the 18th century.

Physicians such as Dr Richard Russell, who has a claim to be the founder of modern Brighton with his health cures, felt the town should have its own hospital.

Notables, including the Earl of Chichester and Thomas Kemp, the man who built Kemp Town, made sure the money and land were available in Eastern Road for the Sussex County Hospital and Sea Bathing Infirmary (the Royal came later after patronage from on high).

A young architect called Charles Barry won the race to design the hospital ahead of more fancied and experienced contenders such as Charles Busby, who created much of Regency Brighton and Hove.

Barry went on to design the Houses of Parliament and was knighted, but the hospital was not one of his best inspirations.

It is rather stolid and unimaginative, although cost constraints, evident then, as now, may have had something to do with that.

The hospital catered for people too poor to pay for their own treatment and the regime was harsh. When patients broke rules, their names were entered in a black book which meant they were banned from the hospital for ever.

Surgery was so primitive, sometimes operations took place on a dining table which had just been cleared. Surgeons wore black rather than white coats because they did not show the blood and pus stains so well.

But the hospital quickly gained a reputation for pioneering surgery, which remains to this day. It has a national standing in areas such as kidney and heart treatment.

There have been many incidents and crises over the years. One of the biggest emergencies occurred in 1872 when a fire threatened to destroy the hospital.

Today's financial pressures may be acute but they are rivalled by those of 1922, when scores of beds were in danger of closure.

The hospital managed to survive two world wars and Harry Gaston mentions how one operation was carried out to remove a live shell from the thigh of a patient.

Perhaps the biggest peacetime emergency came in 1984, when staff had to deal with victims of the IRA bomb at the Grand Hotel.

The real expansion at the hospital has come in the past half century. In the 1960s a tower block was built containing the accident department and a maternity unit.

The Millennium Wing was opened by the Princess Royal in 2000 and the re-sited children's hospital opened for business last year.

Even more significant was the creation of a medical school in conjunction with the two universities.

It meant the RSCH became a new teaching hospital.

Looking at the hospital today, many of the buildings are modern, in stark contrast with the original modest development.

Barry, Kemp and Russell might be proud of what has happened in the past 180 years and surprised at developments during that time, including modern medical techniques and the chronic lack of car parking.

But most of all, they would be amazed the building they put up in the 1820s is still in use.

• Brighton's County Hospital 1828- 2007 by Harry Gaston (Southern Editorial Services, £15) is available at bookshops and online. It can also be bought from: Friends of Brighton and Hove Hospitals, 37 St George's Road, Brighton BN2 1ED. Call 01273 664936 or visit www.hospfriendsbrighton.org.uk. Buying it from the Friends means all proceeds from the sale go directly to them.