Today Kettering and Northampton general hospitals are looking back on 75 years of caring for our local communities and celebrating the vital role we play.
Since 1948 our two hospitals have expanded from employing a few hundred staff to more than 10,000 in a mind-boggling array of different disciplines.
Services hardly dreamed of are now commonplace including:
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A pioneering Surgical Robot at NGH which enables difficult surgeries in hard-to-reach areas with better outcomes for patients and shorter stays in hospital.
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A 24/7 heart attack service at KGH where lives can be saved by fitting tiny stents into arteries within minutes of patients arriving by ambulance
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A specialist stroke centre at NGH providing vital life-saving care and specialist rehabilitation to help patients on the road to recovery
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State-of-the-art imaging systems like CT and MRI which enable doctors to detect cancers and heart and brain problems with great accuracy to enable the right treatments
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Expert surgeons supported by hi-tech equipment are able to deliver procedures like key-hole surgery reducing the need for long stays in hospital – with many patients now able to go home the same day
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State-of-the-art intensive care units at both KGH and NGH supporting our local populations during the Covid pandemic. KGH was the first district general hospital in England to develop an intensive care unit in 1962
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Huge developments in the treatment of arthritis with much better drugs and routine joint-replacement surgeries.
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New drug treatments supported by our teams of specialist pharmacists
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Millions of tests being performed in our hospital laboratories which help provide early warnings and enable treatment before conditions become more serious.
All of these amazing technological and service developments cannot operate without skilled staff, many who have trained for years to be able to deliver care to the NHS’s high standards.
The services themselves cannot operate without an army of support staff in areas such as estates, housekeeping, finance, human resources and information technology, whose often unseen hands enable the hospitals to keep running at full speed to meet the growing demands for care.
KGH Chief Executive Deborah Needham said: “NHS 75 is a time to remember all of the efforts the NHS teams in Northamptonshire have made to improve healthcare at all of our hospitals, clinics and with our GP and community partners.
“I am really proud of our teams, and we are grateful for the on-going support of our community for our NHS. Thank you.”
As we celebrate NHS 75 today our local NHS leaders are already planning for what needs to be done to secure good future healthcare in Northamptonshire.
Deborah continued: “As we celebrate NHS 75 it is important to note that our local NHS leadership teams are already planning ahead to what comes next.
“In Kettering for example we are working on how we rebuild and strengthen our facilities and are fortunate to be part of the New Hospital Programme.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for us to develop facilities which are fit for the future and will meet the growing needs of our local community and make KGH a great place to work for our amazing staff.”
Partnership between KGH and NGH is becoming ever more important and in July 2021 we formed the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS Group.
This means both hospitals are now working more closely than ever before together – and with our health and social care partners – to ensure we develop patient services that are fair and accessible to everyone who needs them in the county.
As a hospital group we are also working with our university partners to develop more research and development opportunities. This will help our patients to get access to the latest treatments and help us to give our staff rewarding careers.
As we embrace incredible new technologies such as artificial intelligence our abilities to provide better care will continue at pace.
History of our hospital over the last 75 years
1948 - July 5 – the National Health Service (NHS) is created. At this point KGH has 129 beds, two operating theatres and five nursing sisters.
1960s - A flurry of building works to address the growing local population – now 140,000. This included a nine-storey nursing home (Thorpe House), outpatient department, A&E, x-ray department, pharmacy, boiler house, and medical records.
1962 - Kettering General Hospital becomes the first district general hospital in England to open an Intensive Care Unit under Dr Gerrard Crocket. It had four beds.
1970s - Work began on a six-storey main ward block (still our main ward block) in 1971 and was completed in 1976. We also built the new Rockingham Wing which opened in 1977 as the hospital’s new maternity and gynaecology department. And the Post Graduate Education Centre opened in 1976.
1980s - New theatres were built for ENT, Eye, Oral and Maxillo-Facial surgery
1990s - The Day Case Unit was built and a new A&E department in 1993 with the Frank Radcliffe Fracture Clinic in 1995.
2000 - The Centenary Wing opened to its first patients following a four-year fundraising campaign with the support of the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph. In 2002 the hospital got its first MRI scanner and in 2003 the £1m Jubilee Wing opened for dermatology patients.
2007 - Our £18m Treatment Centre opened in full to provide a state-of-the-art location for day surgery and a home for the hospital’s breast service on April 2.
2008 - KGH becomes a Foundation Trust and establishes a representative Council of Governors and recruits 5,000 public and staff members. We also open our £4.7m Cardiac Centre and treat more than 3,000 local people with heart problems in the first year.
2010 - We start the groundwork on our £30m new Foundation Wing which houses a new children’s ward, cardiac care wards, and intensive care unit. The Wing was open to its first patients in April 2013.
2016 - We completed a £5m refurbishment of our maternity unit including building two new maternity theatres and associated recovery areas
2019 – KGH receives two pieces of good news. Its bid for a £46m Urgent Care Hub to replace its A&E department has been successful and it has also been allowed to join the Government New Hospitals Programme to apply for funding to rebuild the hospital
2022-2023 – The hospital was told it can start to access £38m for enabling works to prepare for the rebuild and in May this year KGH’s place in the New Hospitals Programme was reiterated in an update on the programme by Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Steve Barclay MP.
2023 - KGH now has 600 beds, a 24-hour Emergency Department (A&E) caring for up to 100,000 patients each year. We provides specialist services including cardiac care for the county. It has inpatient, day case, diagnostic, maternity and outpatient facilities with a dedicated children’s ward and outpatients and about 120,000 patients per year are referred to us for treatment.
