Catalogue description WEST PARK HOSPITAL, EPSOM: RECORDS

Further information about the contents of the various categories of patient records can be found in 6282.

For a plan of the hospital, c1924, see 3050/1. For papers relating to the demolition of West Park Chapel, including an inventory of contents, 1937 and 1987, see 6133/3/1. For the patients' funeral register, 1949-1957, see 6275/1/4. For staff registers of West Park Hospital, c1946 - c1972, see 6280. For minutes of the Surrey Area Health Authority, 1973-1982, see 6197/1/-. The main deposit of records of the Mid Surrey Health Authority is held as 6301.

The London Metropolitan Archives holds the following records relating to West Park Hospital among the records of the King Edward's Hospital Fund: review by the Catering Advisory Service of ward kitchen facilities, Nov 1956, A/KE/716/115; report by the Catering Advisory Service planning ward kitchens, Jul 1957, A/KE/716/132; report by the Garden Advisors relating to Epsom Group Hospitals, 1959, A/KE/727/13; West Park Hospital Management Committee reports on hospital including replanning kitchens and correspondence relating to grants, 1954-1960, A/KE/736/41; Epsom Group Hospital Management Committee, visitors' reports, Apr 1960, Oct 1963 and Sep 1968, A/KE/738/18/1-3. The LMA also holds minutes of the London County Council Asylums Committee, later Mental Hospitals Committee, 1889, 1948, under the reference LCC/MIN/544-01268.

West Park Hospital, Epsom, 1924-1995

Records less than 30 years old are closed to public inspection. Staff records are closed for 75 years. Documents relating to named patients are closed for one hundred years.

Deposited under the 1958 Public Records Act by the Librarian of the College of Nursing, West Park Hospital, in December 1994, and the Projects Manager, Surrey Heartlands NHS Trust, in March, April and November 1995.

• Health services

West Park Hospital was erected by London County Council during the years 1913-1924 and officially opened on 20 June 1924, fully opening in 1926 with provision made for 2096 patients and a South London catchment area. Its construction was part of an extensive capital programme to develop psychiatric services for London outside the metropolitan area. This programme saw the establishment of five large psychiatric and mental handicap hospitals on the Horton estate in Epsom. West Park was managed by the West Park Hospital Sub-Committee of the LCC's Mental Hospitals Committee and was transferred to the National Health Service in July 1948, when responsibility passed to its own Hospital Management Committee under the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board.

In the early 1960s the Minister of Health reorganised the hospitals with the amalgamation of management committees of hospitals caring for the mentally ill with general hospital management committees. As a result, the Epsom District and West Park Hospital Management Committees were merged to form the Epsom and West Park Group Hospital Management Committee in November 1969. A review of catchment areas undertaken at the same time led to West Park losing Lambeth and Southwark, and gaining Epsom. After 1974, this process of losing the London catchment areas continued with the last part of the old London catchment areas for which it was responsible being transferred to Springfield Hospital early in 1981. West Park's catchment area then became wholly that area covered by the Mid Surrey District.

Under the National Health Service Reorganisation Act, 1973, the hospital became the mental illness hospital for the Mid Surrey District within the Surrey Area Health Authority, one of the five areas within the South West Thames Regional Health Authority. The District was arranged into divisions, West Park falling within the Mental Illness Division. In 1975 the Department of Psychiatry at Epsom District Hospital opened, becoming part of the Mental Illness Division. With National Health Service reorganisation in 1982 the Surrey Area was abolished and the Mid Surrey Health Authority was formed, with West Park administered by the Mental Illness Management Team, responsible to the District Management Team. The management structure was again overhauled in 1985, West Park then forming part of the Mental Illness Unit. In April 1995 the hospital became part of the newly formed Surrey Heartlands NHS Trust.

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