Glasgow Royal Infirmary

Glasgow Royal Infirmary
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
The Royal Infirmary's west-facing Centre Block, opened in 1914.
Geography
Location	Castle St, Glasgow, Scotland
Organisation
Care system	NHS Scotland
Hospital type	Teaching
Affiliated university	University of Glasgow
Services
Emergency department	Yes
Beds	1077
Speciality	Cardiology, Plastic Surgery Gynaecology
History
Founded	1794 Rebuilt (I) 1909-1924 Rebuilt (II) 1974-82
Links
Website	Official Website
Lists	Hospitals in Scotland
Other links	:[1]

The Glasgow Royal Infirmary (GRI) is a large teaching hospital, operated by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, With a capacity of around 1000 beds, the hospital campus covers an area of around 8 hectares (20 acres), situated on the north-eastern edge of the city centre of Glasgow, Scotland.

Designed by Robert and James Adam, the original Royal Infirmary building was opened in December 1794. The infirmary was built beside Glasgow Cathedral on land that held the ruins of the Bishop's Castle, which dated from at least the 13th century but had been allowed to fall into disrepair. A Royal Charter was obtained in 1791, that granted the Crown-owned land to the hospital. The original Adams building had five floors (one underground) holding eight wards (giving the hospital just over a hundred beds) and a circular operating room on the fourth floor with a glazed dome ceiling. After a number of additional buildings were added, the first in 1816, a specialist fever block in 1829 and a surgical block in 1861. Following the amalgamation of the old St. Mungo's College of Medicine into the University of Glasgow Medical School in 1947, the old College buildings on Castle Street officially became part of the hospital campus, until their replacement by the New Building in the early 1980s.

The original Adams building was replaced in 1914 with a new building designed by James Miller and opened by King George V. In 1924, the surgical block in which Joseph Lister had worked was also torn down to be replaced. In 1948 the hospital became part of NHS Scotland.

Visions of a brand new hospital on the site had been part of the Bruce Report as early as the late 1940s, but by 1974, the Greater Glasgow Health Board had formally begun plans for the replacement of the 1914 Miller buildings with a brand new building. This would be located on the north of the hospital site overlooking Alexandra Parade and the M8 motorway. The New Building was designed by Sir Basil Spence in a "modular" fashion, where new blocks could be easily added in phases as funding allowed. In the end, only the first phase of Spence's original design was implemented and was finally completed around 1982. Known as the Queen Elizabeth Building, it also incorporated new accommodation for the hospital's teaching departments, thus replacing the old St. Mungo's College buildings. The new complex is linked to the Surgical Block of the original Royal Infirmary building at basement level via a link corridor, with a further pedestrian entrance at lower basement level on Wishart Street (adjacent to the Necropolis). Since 1982 the pre-1915 buildings of the Infirmary have been protected as a category B listed building.