What is a general hospital?
They are usually smaller local hospitals, as compared to regional teaching hospitals. They often have 300-500 beds. They used to be called District General Hospitals (DGHs). Most have a full range of services, e.g.
- Accident and Emergency (A&E) department (usually)
- Outpatient clinics
- X-ray department
- Operating theatres. Operations and procedures are done there.
- Trauma and orthopaedics
- Procedure units (e.g. endoscopy)
- Medical and surgical wards
- Labour ward, and other Women and Childrens’ services
- Coronary Care Unit (CCU) and Intensive Care Unit (ICU)
- A Walk-in or Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) or Minor Illness/Injury Unit (MIU).
They are general in the sense that they admit all types of medical and surgical cases, and they concentrate on patients with acute illnesses needing relatively short-term care.
In addition to the medical and surgical services relating to patient care, they will usually have a pharmacy, laboratories, and rehabilitation departments, e.g. physiotherapy and occupational therapy, speech and language therapy (SALT) and dietetics.
Smaller hospitals may diagnose and stabilise patients prior to transfer to such hospitals. They may in turn, diagnose and stabilise patients prior to transfer to teaching hospitals for specialist care.
Summary
We have described what is a general hospital. We hope you understand them better now.
