Brighton's County Hospital, 1828-2007 - Softcover

Life was tough in Brighton's County Hospital (the Royal tag came later) soon after it was founded in 1828. There was plenty of pain for patients and surgeons were often rough. The dirt and squalor of those days sommply would not be tolerated now. Over almost two centuries, a small infirmary concentrating on the sea-water cure has developed into a leading teaching hospital on the South Coast. It has seen drama such as treating the IRA bomb blast victims at the Grand Hotel in 1984. In this book, Harry Gaston, who worked in the NHS for more than 50 years, has written an authoritative and readable history. --Adam Trimingham, The Argus, 14.6.2008

A new book telling the inside story of the Royal Sussex County Hospital was published on Wednesday 11th June - exactly 180 years to the day the first patients entered its doors. The book charts its progress from its early years as a sea bathing infirmary until its emergence as a leading University teaching hospital. The author, Harry Gaston, was a senior Brighton hospital administrator and editor of the award winning house journal The Bulletin for 40 years. Harry's hospital career began nearly sixty years ago when he joined the clerical staff at Newhaven Downs Hospital. Brighton's County Hospital 1828 - 2007 includes many photos published for the first time as the author was allowed access to the hospital archives. There are an impressive 165 images, with a time frame of 1828 to the present day. Chapters have excellent supporting notes and the extensive index makes searches for anything extremely simple. This is essentially a history book, but it also personally engages the reader by providing not only the facts behind the development of the hospital, but also the human stories which are inevitably interwoven into its history. To recognise the enduring work of the Friends of Brighton & Hove Hospitals and due to the support of Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, all copies of the book sold will benefit the Friends of Brighton & Hove Hospitals. The Friends are delighted to be the main beneficiary from sales of the book. Although only founded a mere 58 years ago in 1949, the Friends has a City-wide reputation for providing equipment and services to support NHS patients, making their lives more comfortable, more convenient and more personal --Jennifer Drury, mybrightonandhove.org.uk

Beautifully presented and fascinating, this book chronicles an institution that has always been central to the lives of the people of Brighton. The story begins in 1828, when patients had to be too poor to pay for their treatment, (when anyone who broke the hospital's strict regulations had their names entered in a Black Book and risked being barred forever ... and operations on the students' supper table), through to its emergence as a leading University teaching hospital. A cauldron of the society it served, we learn about: the rivalry bewtween physicians and surgeons, revealed at the Sussex Assizes in 1912; the threat to 100 beds during the finacial crisis of 1922; the dangerous operation to remove a live cannon shell from a sailor's leg in the Second World war; the major fire in 1872 that almost destroyed the building; the aftermath of the IRA bombing of Brighton's Grand Hotel in 1984, and so on. Absorbing photographs bring it all to life. --Seven Dials Directory, July 2008

Brighton's County Hospital describes the development of the hospital, its patients and the people who worked in it from its early years until the present day. Some of the high (and low) points along the way include the bravery of staff during the fire on New Year's Day in 1872 that threatened to destroy the hospital, the rivalry between physicians and surgeons revealed at the Sussex Assizes in 1908, the financial crisis of 1922 that almost closed 100 beds, the dangerous operation to remove a live shell from a sailor's thigh during the Second World War and the way staff dealt with the aftermath of the IRA bombing of Brighton's Grand Hotel in 1984. Brighton's County Hospital contains more than 160 photographs. The Foreword is provided by Baroness Cumberlege, a former chairman of Brighton Health Authority and former junior health minister.