The 1950s at Nuffield Hospitals
The organisation known today as Nuffield Hospitals was established by The British United Provident Association (BUPA) as the Nursing Homes Charitable Trust on 14 January 1957. Its aim was to rescue or take over struggling nursing homes and private hospitals to ensure that there was sufficient private hospital capacity to support the demand from increasingly popular medical insurance.
The demand for private medical insurance had been increasing since the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948, whilst the number of private facilities had been declining rapidly, leading to an imbalance between demand and capacity. In 1959, Lord Nuffield, then president of BUPA, gave permission for his name to be used for the charitable Trust, with the organisation being renamed the Nuffield Nursing Homes Trust (NNHT).
The first hospital to open was a completely refurbished facility in Bournemouth, the former Strathallan Nursing Home, which opened its doors on 10 November 1958 following local fundraising to save the site from closure. The Duchy House Nursing Home in Harrogate was added in 1958 following a similar local campaign to raise funds.
New Hospital Additions during the 1950s included:
Healthcare Developments during the 1950s
Mass radiography became important in the 1950s when effective drug treatments for tuberculosis were introduced. The range of medical X-ray diagnostic techniques offered by Nuffield Hospitals expanded to include computed tomography (CT) scans, mammography and angiography. Today, X-rays can be converted into digital signals and stored on a computer disc, so that the radiologist does not look at an X-ray film but at a monitor.
“Oh, how times have changed!”
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