Whipps Cross Hospital in the 1970s
A new accident and emergency (A&E) unit was opened in 1972 followed by a new maternity unit the next year on the south-west corner of the hospital site. This brought the official bed number for the hospital again to over 1000.
The money for an extension to the hospital in 1974 was largely subscribed by doctors and dentists. The same year, following a major reorganisation of the NHS, the hospital came under the control of West Roding District Health Authority, part of Redbridge and Waltham Forest Area Health Authority under the North East Thames Regional Health Authority. Connaught Day Hospital for the elderly opened on the Whipps Cross site in 1977.
West Roding School of Nursing
Following the consolidation of nurse training for surrounding hospitals at Whipps in the 1960s, the hospital nursing school formally integrated the other smaller nursing schools. The integrated nursing school was known as the West Roding College of Nursing until the 1990s.
Barts Health NHS Trust Archives, RLHWX/NE/4/3
Dr A E Dormer
Alwin Eric Dormer was a consultant physician at Whipps Cross Hospital. He was born in 1921 in West Ham and educated at West Ham Secondary School, passing his Higher School Certificate in 1939.
In 1946, he won a scholarship to study medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, qualifying in 1951. He remained at Bart’s and from 1962 to 1964 was a medical tutor and casualty physician.
In 1964 he was appointed as a consultant physician to the Forest Group of Hospitals, principally Whipps Cross, where he stayed for the next 22 years. His father had been on the board of guardians of Whipps Cross Hospital from 1922.
Medical education was always of great interest to him, and he was a clinical tutor at Whipps Cross from 1971 to 1979, a period when the medical education centre was greatly enlarged. He was an examiner for the MRCP exam from 1974 to 1988.
Outside medicine, he served as ‘verderer’ of Epping Forest, the official representatives of the users of the former Royal forests. He also wrote a several histories - of Whipps Cross Hospital, and of all the hospitals in the Forest Group.
Barts Health NHS Trust, RLHREF/366
