Cromer Hospital

The main entrance to the old hospital before it was demolished

The hospital has its origins in a medical facility formed from two cottages in Louden Road in 1866.[2] The hospital was rebuilt in Louden Road in 1888 but then moved to a purpose-built facility opened by Lady Suffield at Old Mill Road in 1932.[2] The hospital joined the National Health Service in 1948 and a new out-patients building opened in 1954.[2]

In 2001 Mrs Sagle Bernstein, a Cromer resident, left £11m to Cromer and District Hospital in recognition of the excellent care that her sister had received as a patient at the hospital.[3] The terms of Mrs Bernstein’s will were that it was to be spent on "improvement of general facilities" and could only be spent at Cromer Hospital. Some £500,000 of the legacy was spent on an eight-station renal dialysis unit which opened in June 2006.[4] The dialysis unit was relocated to the refurbished Barclay ward in January 2011.[5]

Following a feasibility study carried out in 2006, a tender competition for the new hospital was undertaken and a planning application for a £26 million scheme was submitted to North Norfolk District Council in November 2008.[6] The trust subsequently scaled back the scheme and a revised planning application for a £15 million scheme was submitted to the District Council in June 2009. After the application was approved in May 2010, construction of the works, which were designed by Purcell Miller Tritton and were undertaken by Mansell, part of Balfour Beatty, started in autumn 2010 and were completed in Autumn 2012.[2]