About us

Our Vision

"Excellent integrated care for you and your family, when and where you need it”

Croydon Health Services provide acute and community healthcare services across the borough of Croydon either in patient’s own homes or from clinics and specialist centres, including Croydon University Hospital and Purley War Memorial Hospital Purley is currently undergoing an £11 million refurbishment and is due to re-open in the summer of 2013.

Around 3,500 staff provide services for a population of over 360,000 people who are relatively young with a high level of ethnic diversity.

The Trust was formed on 1st August 2010 through the integration of Croydon Community Health Services and Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust.
 

At Croydon Health Services we promise that we are always here for you. 

We promise everyone in Croydon, whether you are in hospital, in the community or at home, that we will do our best to ensure: 

• You feel cared for by helpful and welcoming staff, who respect you as an individual
• You feel in safe hands with highly professional staff who work well together in clean clinics and hospitals   
• You feel confident in your treatment from skilled teams of  compassionate clinicians who listen to you and keep you informed
• You feel we value your time with convenient appointments, minimal waiting and care closer to home
• You feel it’s getting better all the time as we continue to improve our services.

These promises, developed with our patients, carers and staff help us deliver the pledges in the NHS Constitution and our own corporate objectives. 
 

• To deliver high quality integrated patient centred care which improves outcomes, patient safety and patient experience.
• To work with partners to improve the health and wellbeing of the people of Croydon.
• To develop our workforce and to establish a way of working that builds a culture that is committed to an open transparent evidence based approach.
• To deliver best practice performance standards against the national operating framework.
• To deliver well managed quality services which are value for money for the tax payer.

The history of the Trust’s estate graphically demonstrates the changing healthcare needs of local people starting with the Union Workhouse built in 1866 on the site of what was to become later, Queens Hospital.

As needs changed the Croydon General Hospital was opened in 1876 and a rise in infectious diseases saw the New Union Infirmary open in 1885. The Infirmary was renamed for its location as the Mayday Road Hospital eventually becoming Mayday University Hospital.

The Waddon Isolation Hospital was opened in 1896 and closed in 1982 as the need for this type of specialist hospital diminished.

As healthcare needs and the population increased St Mary’s Maternity Hospital and Purley War Memorial Hospital were opened to provide facilities in the expanding southern part of the Croydon area.

The Health Service Act of 1946 placed the management of the hospitals in the Croydon area in the hands of the Croydon and Warlingham Park Group Hospital Management Committee until Government changes led to the formation in 1993 of Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust.

In the last fifty years of the 20th Century the consolidation of acute services led to the closure of Waddon, St Mary’s, Queens and Croydon General Hospitals.

This was paralleled with the development of:

• Mayday Hospital including the Chest and Eye Clinic in 1954
• Pathology and Outpatients in 1966
• Pharmacy and X-Ray in 1967
• Accident and Emergency in 1969 (replaced in 1996 and modernised and expanded several times since)
• The Surgical Block in 1984
• Main entrance in 1997
• Energy Centre in 1999

In addition, during the 1990s, the Trust opened the Sickle Cell and Thalassemia Centre in a rented building in Thornton Heath.

The Jubilee Wing, a new ward block comprising eleven wards and a day surgery unit, opened in 2004 enabling the closure of existing Nightingale Wards at both Mayday and Purley Hospital sites.

The former Nightingale Wards were used for the relocation of the dermatology clinics and paediatric outpatients, the formation of an undergraduate centre and creation of an Emergency Assessment Unit.

More recently the Birth Centre has opened in a refurbished section of the Maternity Unit and a Women’s Unit has been established in another part of the same Department. New residential accommodation for health workers has opened on part of the former Queens Hospital site.

On 1 August 2010 the Trust integrated with Croydon Community Health services to form a new integrated care organisation, providing both hospital based and community services.

To recognise this new type of organisation the Trust officially changed its name on Friday 1 October 2010 to Croydon Health Services NHS Trust and the name of the main hospital changed to become Croydon University Hospital to reflect its close identity with local people and its many links to nearby education and training establishments.