Alder Hey

Alder Hey is Liverpool's children's hospital.  It was established in 1914 and has grown to become the largest children's hospital in Europe.  It provides specialist services to children from all over the North West of England.  The Oncology Unit is one of those services and children travel from as far as North Wales, Blackpool and the Isle of Mann to attend the unit.  Each year it treats of 200,000 children.  The Accident and Emergency department treats 65,000 children each year.  The hospital has 10 state of the art operating theatres and employs over 2700 staff.  Each year the hospital costs over £130,000,000 to run.

Up until April 2003 the Oncology Unit was based in Ward C3.  In 1998 an appeal was launched to raise ten million pounds to build the UK's first integrated cancer unit.  The appeal was called the Rocking Horse Appeal.  The appeal was successful and construction of the new oncology unit started in October 2001.  In March 2003 the unit opened and contains a day ward, specially designed transplant isolation rooms, in-patient ward, clinic waiting rooms, indoor and outdoor play areas and consultation rooms as well as offices for staff.

The Hospital has had proposals approved by Liverpool City Council to redevelop the hospital by building a new hospital on an adjacent park and then converting much of the existing site to parkland.  Building work is expected to commence in 2010.

The chart below shows how many days and nights Eleanor spent in hospital during her treatment.