Our history

Liverpool Women’s opened its extended and fully refurbished Reproductive Medicine Unit making one of the most up to date and state of the art facilities in Europe. The unit can accommodate up to 2,500 couples who may require IVF or other assisted conception treatments and hosts an NHS sperm bank and an embryology laboratory that is able to offer treatment to viral discordant couples.

Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust was founded on 1st April 2005 under the Health and Social Care (Community Standards) Act 2003. It was the first trust in Merseyside to achieve Foundation Trust status.

The Liverpool Women’s Hospital NHS Trust took over the Aintree Centre for Women’s Health, providing services to the women of north Liverpool, Sefton and Knowsley and in so doing became the largest women’s hospital in Europe.

Liverpool Women’s Hospital NHS Trust main services for women and babies in Liverpool came together under one roof at the Trust’s new £30 million hospital on Crown Street.

The Liverpool Obstetrics and Gynaecology Unit became known as Liverpool Women’s Hospital NHS Trust.

The Liverpool Obstetrics and Gynaecology Unit became an NHS Trust.

Administration of the three hospitals, Mill Road, The Women’s Hospital and Liverpool Maternity Hospital was assumed by the Liverpool Obstetrics and Gynaecology Unit.

What was left of Mill Road Hospital after it was bombed during the Second World War was restored and upgraded as a specialist gynaecology and obstetrics hospital rather than a general infirmary.

As a result of Mill Road Infirmary being badly bombed during the Second World War, patients were transferred from the damaged building to Broadgreen Hospital.

The Duchess of York opened the new building of The Women’s Hospital (formerly known as the Liverpool and Samaritan Hospital for Women) on Catharine Street. The new building housed the amalgamation of the Shaw Street’s Special Hospital for Women and the Samaritan Hospital for Women based in Upper Parliament Street.

The Liverpool Maternity Hospital opened on Oxford Street as the largest voluntary maternity hospital in Britain and as an evolution of the Brownlow Lying-in Hospital to meet the demands of a growing city.

The Samaritan Hospital for Women moved to Upper Parliament Street.

Interest in specialist treatment for women was clearly growing in Liverpool at the turn of the twentieth century and hence another hospital, the Samaritan Hospital for Women, opened in Upper Warwick Street.

The West Derby Union Workhouse Hospital became Mill Road Infirmary and operated as a general hospital for around fifty years.

The Brownlow Lying–in hospital was opened as an amalgamation of the capabilities of the Ladies’ Charity and original Lying-in hospital.

The Special Hospital for Women opened in Shaw Street as a result of the fundraising work by a committee who wanted a separate hospital for non-maternity patients.

The local Board of Guardians built the West Derby Union Workhouse Hospital for the sick poor of the parish – it later became Mill Road Infirmary.

The council opened its own Lying-in Hospital.

A group of public spirited Liverpool ladies set up the Ladies’ Charity to provide medical care and assistance with childbirth to “reputable married women and widows resident in the town.” This early example of specialisation did not operate in a hospital but took doctor and midwife services to patients’ homes. It carried on its work independently for almost 90 years.