Situated on the outskirts of Luton in Bedfordshire, Luton and Dunstable University Hospital – widely known as the ‘L&D’ – provides acute medical and surgical care to more than 350,000 people across southern Bedfordshire, the north of Hertfordshire, and parts of Buckinghamshire. Run by Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, it employs around 3,400 staff and has grown from a modest Victorian facility into a teaching hospital with university links.
From Bute Hospital to University Teaching Hospital
The hospital’s origins go back to September 1882, when the Bute Hospital opened on Dunstable Road in Luton, built on land donated by the Marquis of Bute, who lived nearby at Luton Hoo. Extensions were added in July 1902 and again in July 1912, but the site left little room for further growth. Ten acres of land between Luton and Dunstable – purchased from Electrolux – were chosen for a new facility. Designed by Parrott and Dunham and built by local contractor H. C. Janes, the new hospital was opened by Queen Mary on 14 February 1939. Its wards were named in honour of Queen Mary, Lady Ludlow of Luton Hoo, and Arthur Buckingham, a Dunstable grocer who left £4,000 towards its construction. The hospital joined the National Health Service in 1948. In March 2012 it became a teaching hospital for University College London, and the Duke of Edinburgh opened a new cardiac centre there in February 2013. Earlier royal visits included the Duchess of Gloucester in July 1996 and Princess Anne, who opened the St Mary’s Wing Rehabilitation Centre in February 2003.
Patient Safety and Staff Recognition
The L&D has been a Safer Patient Initiative site since 2004. Former Chief Executive Stephen Ramsden made reducing the hospital’s mortality rate a central priority, and after the hospital won the Health Foundation’s Safer Patients Initiative, Ramsden was appointed director of the National Patient Safety Campaign and received an OBE for services to healthcare. The hospital treats 99% of A&E patients within the four-hour target, and a BBC report noted that other hospitals could learn from its approach. In 2015, the Health Service Journal named it one of the top hundred NHS trusts to work for, at which point it had 3,323 full-time equivalent staff, a sickness absence rate of 3.25%, with 67% of staff recommending it as a place for treatment and 60% recommending it as a place to work. The Care Quality Commission rated the hospital as “good” overall in June 2016.