Royal Brompton Hospital

Royal Brompton Hospital is the largest specialist heart and lung medical centre in the United Kingdom.The hospital is part of Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, which includes Royal Brompton Hospital in Chelsea and Harefield Hospital near Uxbridge. Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust is the largest specialist heart and lung centre in the UK and among the largest in Europe.Diana, Princess of Wales used to visit patients at the hospital often.Consumption in the 19th CenturyIn the 19th century, consumption was a common word for tuberculosis. At the time consumptive patients were turned away from other hospitals as there was no known cure. Hospitals that dealt with such diseases later came to be known as sanatoria. The prospectus for the Hospital stated that for the last 6 months of 1837 out of 148,701 deaths from all causes, 27,754 were from consumption.The beginningThe hospital was founded in the 1840s by Philip Rose, the first meeting to establish the Hospital was on 8 March 1841. It was to be known as The Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest. It amalgamated on 25 May 1841 with The West London Dispensary for Diseases of the Chest, which was based at 83 Wells Street, near Oxford Street. Little is now known about the Dispensary. On 28 March 1842, an out-patients branch of the hospital was opened at 20 Great Marlborough Street. Later that year they acquired a lease on their first building for in-patients at The Manor House, Chelsea, which held space for 20 beds and the first in-patients were admitted on 13 September 1842. Admittance was to be by the then customary method of recommendation by the Governors and subscribers. Manor House remained in use as a convalescence home after the hospital had moved to the Brompton site.