Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust was one of the first foundation trusts in the country, established in 2005. We pride ourselves on the quality and excellence of our services. Our award winning Trust employs around 4,200 people serving a population of around 200,000.
1. Queen Elizabeth Hospital
2. Bensham Hospital
Foundation Doctors are able to choose their F2 rotations independently of their FI choice. This decision is made in early spring and this level of choice is seen as one of the major advantages of the Gateshead Foundation Programme.
At QE Gateshead we actively support continuous professional development and training to achieve the curriculum requirements of specialty training, including GPVTS, while supporting individual learning needs.
We have an excellent reputation as a teaching hospital with talented Junior Doctors and Consultants delivering high quality training. Many education and training opportunities are available throughout the Trust as well as specialty-specific programmes that take place in the Clinical Skills centre.
This allows us to utilise the most up to date technology in our high fidelity clinical simulation area. Our well equipped centre houses our SimMan, SimMom, SimJunior and SimBaby manikins. We host several postgraduate courses including ATLS, ALS, APLS, MRCPCH, and Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Simulation training is high on our agenda and we incorporate this in our Human factors training, Simulation Training in Paediatric Emergencies, and our Obstetric Emergencies course to name just a few.
Junior Doctors who have worked here are always happy to return, describing us as a friendly, supportive and down to earth Trust where they feel they can learn their trade.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is our main site providing a range of high quality services to local people. Our maternity services are rated as some of the best in the country, “Small enought to care, big enough to cope” is our motto. We are also home to the beautifully designed Peter Smith Surgery Centre, which aims to give patients’ the same care experience you would expect from a 5 star hotel such as en-suite facilities.
We also run the Gateshead Fertility Centre, one of the top ten IVF clinics in the country. Over the past decade, we have created hundreds of families in Gateshead and the surrounding area.
Our breast cancer services are among the very best in the country and we are also the main centre in the North East for women who have a gynaecological cancer.
We have a nationally recognised reputation for our work as a regional centre for breast and bowel cancer screening and we are one of five regional centres across the country.
Since 1 October 2016 a new organisation called the Gateshead Care Partnership has been providing NHS community services across the borough by bringing together teams from the NHS, Community Based Care Ltd (whose membership comprises all Gateshead GPs) and Gateshead Council.
This innovative new partnership enables the whole system to work together more effectively so that all the experts from doctors and nurses to GPs and social workers are working together on better, more responsive care. By coming together in this way we bring everyone into a single organisation with patient care at its heart.
The last ten years have seen some major achievements for the trust included consistently high ratings from the regulators and our patients. There have been many high points including: the development of a cutting edge surgery centre, a growing reputation for breast screening, excellence in women’s cancers, advances in laparoscopic surgery, a new clinical skills training centre and one of the best maternity units in the country.
Recent highlights include the construction of a pioneering £32m emergency care centre and the development of a world class pathology centre of excellence based at the QE site in Gateshead.
The £32m centre has transformed urgent healthcare in Gateshead combining accident and emergency, walk in centre, medical & surgical assessment and urgent children’s services all under one roof. It has already won several major awards and gained national attention.
Visit: www.qegateshead.nhs.uk/emergencycarecentre for more details.
The Pathology Centre is our new state-of-the-art facility which operates at the cutting edge of pathology services in the UK. The new £12m centre now provides services for several Trusts across the region. The fantastic new building is packed with the latest technology and we have ambitious plans for the future work of the unit.
Visit: www.qegateshead.nhs.uk/pathology for more details.
Frieda Dreyer
“Queen Elizabeth hospital provides a welcoming and supportive environment to train and develop both professional and personal skills. As a senior trainee I have also had a lot of opportunities to develop teaching, leadership and management skills and would recommend it for all levels of training.”