Professor David Walker recalls watching the hospital being built when a medical student (Video: University of Nottingham)
Nottingham’s world-famous teaching hospital the Queen’s Medical Centre turns 40 today and ex-staff members have recalled their memories of its opening.
Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the QMC on July 28 1977 with the new tram bridge officially unveiled today to mark its 40th anniversary.
Retired clinical sub-dean, Dr Peter Toghill, gave a tour of the newly opened hospital to The Duke of Edinburgh.
Dr Toghill said: “I was on holiday at the time and I remember coming down from North Yorkshire to do my duty of taking The Duke of Edinburgh around the site.
“It was lovely to see them at close range and the children and all the staff were there cheering The Queen.
“She was walking up and down in a very gracious way – I didn’t see too much of The Queen but I saw a lot of The Duke of Edinburgh and I was impressed with his knowledge about scientific matters and he was fascinated by what we were telling him about.
“My only particular memory of that time was that he was chatting with us for so long, The Queen had moved a long way ahead and we suddenly heard this imperious voice calling down.
“‘Philip, hurry up, we’re getting very late!’ That was The Queen of course. We didn’t see much more of her as she walked around the hospital and then went onto the Test match!”
Professor Sir Peter Rubin, former dean of the Medical School and chairman of the General Medical Council, gave his account of the impact the QMC has had since it opened.
He said: “The reason the QMC was built where it was is very relevant because back in the 60s, the government at the time, not for the first time or the last, were worried about whether the country was producing enough doctors of its own.
“They decided there was a need to train more doctors in England and the university chosen to be the site was Nottingham.
“It wasn’t just because the university was good and keen to have a medical school but a more important reason was all health indicators at the time showed Nottingham at the bottom of the pile.
“It’s hard to imagine that now but it was really a very poor part of the country to live in terms of health outcomes and it was felt if a medical school and an associated university hospital was built here, it would drive up the standards of care.
“It’s done that to an amazing degree for which we now take for granted.”
An archivist at Manuscripts and Special Collections at the University of Nottingham has delved into the archives to find 10 little known facts about the day Queen Elizabeth II formally opened the hospital.
Kathryn Steenson said: “Opening a new teaching hospital and a medical school was a huge achievement and one Nottingham is rightly proud of.
“That’s one of the reasons the medical school transferred its archives – over 140 boxes of them – to Manuscripts and Special Collections for safekeeping.”
10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the QMC
- A scale model of the QMC made of cake was presented to the Queen when she opened the building.
- There were six drafts of the programme for the opening ceremony and a full dress rehearsal took place on July 25 1977.
- Other suggested names from the hospital included ‘The Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre’ and ‘The Queen’s Hospital and Medical Centre’ – the actual name was kept secret until the grand unveiling.
- The Queen was awarded the Ordo Caligulae (‘The Order of the Boot’) in 1977, which is usually awarded by the Students’ Union to graduating students in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the Union. As a recipient, the Queen has an honorary life membership of the SU.
- The University of Nottingham had wanted to open a new medical school since the 1940s.
- The building works were delayed and the medical school and hospital weren’t finished when the first 48 medical students began their degree in 1970. They were taught in temporary buildings on University Park and in other local hospitals.
- It was the first medical school to be built in the UK since 1893.
- When it opened, QMC was the biggest purpose-built hopsital in Europe. The site covered 43 acres and the hospital had 27 miles of corridors.
- In 1978, Nottingham Children’s Hospital closed and its occupants became the first in-patients of the QMC.
- QMC was built with 1,000 beds for acutely ill patients, 84 for geriatrics patients, 175 for mental health patients and the remaining 168 beds in the maternity units.
In 1964 the Minister of Health announced that a new medical school and university teaching hospital was to be established at Nottingham.
There was a shortage of doctors and the existing medical schools could not meet the demand.
The city was chosen because healthcare provision here ranked amongst the least adequate in country at the time.
