St Pancras Hospital is a public hospital

Public hospital

A public hospital or government hospital is a hospital which is owned by a government and receives government funding. This type of hospital provides medical care free of charge, the cost of which is covered by the funding the hospital receives....

 in the St Pancras

St Pancras, London

St Pancras is an area of London. For many centuries the name has been used for various officially-designated areas, but now is used informally and rarely having been largely superseded by several other names for overlapping districts.-Ancient parish:...

/Somers Town

Somers Town, London

Somers Town, was named for Charles Cocks, 1st Baron Somers. The area in St Pancras, London, was originally granted by William III to John Somers, Lord Chancellor and Baron Somers of Evesham. It was to be strongly influenced by the three mainline north London railway termini: Euston , St...

 area of London, near Camden Town

Camden Town

-Economy:In recent years, entertainment-related businesses and a Holiday Inn have moved into the area. A number of retail and food chain outlets have replaced independent shops driven out by high rents and redevelopment. Restaurants have thrived, with the variety of culinary traditions found in...

. The hospital is controlled by the Camden Primary Care Trust and specialises in geriatric

Geriatrics

Geriatrics is a sub-specialty of internal medicine and family medicine that focuses on health care of elderly people. It aims to promote health by preventing and treating diseases and disabilities in older adults. There is no set age at which patients may be under the care of a geriatrician, or...

 and psychiatric

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

 medicine.

The hospital was formerly the St Pancras Workhouse. The Workhouse dates back to before 1777 and the hospital is partly housed in the original buildings. From 1951 to 1998 its buildings were occupied by the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases. The chaplaincy is run from St Pancras Old Church

St Pancras Old Church

St Pancras Old Church is a Church of England parish church in central London. It is believed to be one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in England, and is dedicated to the Roman martyr Saint Pancras, although the building itself is largely Victorian...

.

Controversies

In January 1999 an independent report revealed abuse at Beach House, one of the geriatric units of the hospital, where nurses hit and tied up elderly mentally ill patients, and racially intimidated colleagues who threatened to report them.

A paedophile

Pedophilia

As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children...

 nurse was sacked in February 2005 and subsequently struck off. The number of mental health beds were reduced in 2007-08.

Notable connections

• Charles Sydney Gibbes
  Charles Sydney Gibbes
  Charles Sydney Gibbes was the English tutor of Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia. Later in his life he became an Orthodox monk, adopting the name of Nicholas after Saint Nicholas The Passion Bearer. After his return to Britain he became a prominent figure in Orthodoxy in Britain...
  
   died in the hospital on 24 March 1963.
• Sir Kingsley Amis
  Kingsley Amis
  Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...
  
  died in the hospital on 22 October 1995.

External links

• Camden PCT official site