This 700 bed hospital is also home to the Birmingham Treatment Centre, Birmingham and Midland Eye Centre, Regional Gynae-Oncology Centre, West Midlands Poison Unit, and Skin Centre. It is also a major facility for sickle cell treatment in the region. City Hospital’s neo-natal unit has recently been refurbished and extended and its dedicated isolation ward has also gone through a £500,000 refit.


The hospital has provided care for patients since it was first built in 1889 as an extension to the workhouse, also on the site. It originally comprised of a single corridor stretching for a quarter of a mile with nine Nightingale Ward blocks on either side along its length. This ward configuration was recommended by Florence Nightingale. The Birmingham Union Infirmary as it was known, later changed its name to the Dudley Road Infirmary before becoming Dudley Road Hospital and, more recently, City Hospital.

Towards 2010

Under plans for the future development of health and social care services in Birmingham and Sandwell, the Birmingham Treatment Centre will remain on the site as a Community Hospital providing one stop diagnosis and treatment including:- day surgery, outpatients, imaging and intermediate care beds. The remainder of the site will be sold for development once our new acute hospital opens in Smethwick in 2015.