Intensive Care Unit The original unit was set up in The Old Site in 1959 by Dr Leslie Cole, the senior physician, and Dr Harold Youngman, the senior anaesthetist; Sister Pat Mountford was in charge. Known as the Blue Room, it had four beds and was equipped with Radcliffe ventilators. Most of the patients came from the medical wards, often suffering from neurological disorders such as polyneuritis or tetanus. Nurses were shared with Hatton Ward and medical cover provided by the patients’ admitting firms and by the anaesthetists.

When the first stage of the new hospital opened in 1962 special care areas were created for neurosurgical and head injury patients, but other surgical or trauma patients were ventilated on the wards. In 1974 the general surgical beds moved into the second stage and an intensive care unit was provided on C6, an orthopaedic ward. The Blue Room remained open until 1976, when the medical wards moved down to the New Site.

By that time there was a clear need for a proper unit. It was decided that a 10 bed ward should be converted into a six bed ICU; this was to last until the definitive unit was built in Stage III. However, the staff establishment remained at a total of 16 nurses, officially to cover only four beds, although by this time there was always a doctor on during ‘working hours’.