The Hammersmith Hospital

Established in 1902

The hospital was set up in 1902 by the Poor Law Guardians of Hammersmith as an infirmary and workhouse and officially opened in 1905 by Princess Henry of Battenburg. During the First World War it became the Military Orthopaedic Hospital and after the war, in 1919, the ‘Special Surgical Hospital’. In 1925 it was renamed the Hammersmith Hospital and until 1997 was home to the Royal Postgraduate Medical School. Surgery and the education of future doctors and surgeons has always been at the heart of the institution.

1994 – Hammersmith Hospital and Charing Cross Hospital merge

The Hammersmith and Charing Cross Hospitals merged in 1994 to become ‘Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust’. The Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School remained on the Charing Cross site but with some clinical teaching occurring at the Hammersmith. Charing Cross Hospital relocated from its original building in London’s Strand in 1973 to its present site on the Fulham Palace Road. It is actually much closer the the Hammersmith Station than the Hammersmith Hospital! In 1998 a specialist maternity and obstetric hospital was added to the Hammersmith site, hosting Queen Charlotte’s Hospital and the Chelsea Hospital.

Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital

Charing Cross Hospital

Hammersmith Hospital

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

In 2007, the Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust merged with St. Mary’s Hospital and Imperial College London to form the UK’s first Academic Health Sciences Centre – bringing research and clinical practice together on three main hospital sites.

The Hammersmith Hospital site is now home to several national and internationally-renowned departments which make it a perfect place to deliver specialist endocrine care. These include:

Imperial Centre of Endocrinology
Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea Hospital
West London Renal Unit
Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery

The Department of Endocrine & Thyroid Surgery sees patients in outpatient clinics on all three sites and surgery is performed at the Hammersmith. Our staff are actively engaged in teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students of Imperial College, London and in research.