The hospital had its origins in the Ipswich Workhouse Infirmary, which was designed by Henry Percy Adams and built by George Grimwood & Son, and which opened in 1889.[1][2] It became the Ipswich Borough General Hospital in 1939 and, after it had joined the National Health Service in 1948, it became the Ipswich Hospital, Heath Road Wing in 1955.[1] After services transferred from the old Anglesea Road site in 1985, the hospital simply became known as Ipswich Hospital.[3]
The hospital started implementing the Lorenzo patient record systems in December 2013.[4] It became one of the partners in the Pathology Partnership established in March 2014 and started acting as one of two hubs for pathology in the region.[5]
The Garrett Anderson Centre, named after the UK's first female doctor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, opened in June 2008. Located at the South-East corner of the hospital land, the building includes an Emergency Department.[6]
In 2022 the first part of its new children's department opened. The project should be completed by summer 2024.[7]
In November 2013 it was reported that the Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust had failed to meet a number of targets set by the Ipswich and East Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group and faced financial penalties at a time when it already faced a deficit of £5.5 million.[8]
In 2014 the trust was the fifth best in England on the target of seeing 95 per cent of people who attend accident and emergency departments within four hours; it achieved 96.6 percent, despite an 11 per cent increase in non-elective admissions. The trust has developed a tool that gives three hours' warning when the target is likely to be missed, based on factors such as acuity and intensive therapy unit bed numbers.[9]
