What is a teaching hospital?
Teaching hospitals are usually large and based in or near the centre of a region of the UK – usually in a big city.
They often have 600-1200 beds. They are linked to universities and usually have a linked medical school; where medical students are trained to be doctors. They are usually research centres as well.
They usually have the facilities listed in local general hospitals (see link below). Those smaller hospitals may act as ‘feeder’ hospitals to them – i.e. transferring patients to the teaching hospital for specialist care.
They also have specialist services for more serious and rarer diseases, like kidney dialysis and transplantation, cancer treatment and plastic surgery. Some have a major trauma centre with a helicopter etc.
Summary
We have described what is a teaching hospital? We hope it has been helpful.
Other resources
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Different types of NHS hospital
Different departments in an NHS hospital
