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Victoria Cottage/Community Hospital, Thame

Thame Hospital, taken between 1974 and 1982Proposals to found a Cottage Hospital in Thame were first made in about 1892, because of the difficulties of conveying serious cases to the Radcliffe Infirmary and the need for a base for nurses working in the area. The South Oxfordshire Benefit Association had been formed that year to supply Cottage Nurses in Thame and nineteen South Oxfordshire parishes. These nurses were lodged initially at 72 Lower High Street. In 1897 Samuel Lacey purchased a small plot of land at the end of East Street and built a nurses’ home at his own expense; the home was also to be capable of accommodating occasional patients requiring close supervision. It was presented to the South Oxfordshire Nursing Association in celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and opened as the Victoria Nursing Home.

The home was supported by public subscription and donation and by a wide variety of fund raising activities, and several extensions were made to the original building, including additional bedrooms and an operating theatre for minor surgery. By 1915 there was room for eight patients. A three ward wing was added in 1922 and two maternity wards in 1926. A motor ambulance was purchased in 1932.

The hospital was known as the Victoria Cottage Hospital from 1924. It became part of the NHS in 1948 and was administered from 1948 by the Oxford and District Hospital Management Committee 1948-1956 and by the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre 1956-1974. Responsibility passed to Oxfordshire Area Health Authority (Teaching) in 1974, Oxfordshire Health Authority in 1982 and Oxfordshire Community Health NHS Trust in April 1994. It is now run by Buckinghamshire Primary Care Trust.

Records of Victoria Cottage/Commuity Hospital

There are no records at Oxfordshire Health Archives.

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Last updated: 29 August, 2018