The NHS Grampian Archives comprise the records of hospitals and other health related institutions in the Grampian area from 1739, when the Infirmary at Aberdeen was founded, to the late 20th century.
Most of the records from the 18th and 19th centuries are of hospitals: general and specialist hospitals, cottage hospitals and asylums. These records contain information on the administration of the hospitals and about the people who were patients, staff and contributors to hospital funds. In addition there are records from the three local poorhouses which in 1948 became hospitals in the newly formed NHS.
Material from the 20th century includes both hospital collections and the records of a range of local health organisations such as the National Insurance Committees set up under the 1911 National Health Insurance Act. Also contained in the archives are records of local authority health departments which, prior to 1974, had responsibility for a range of healthcare services including prevention of epidemics, mother and child welfare, and school medical services.
The archive is housed in the Special Collections Centre, part of the Sir Duncan Rice Library in Old Aberdeen. If you have any enquiries or wish to consult the records please contact the archivist Miss Fiona R Watson (email grampian.archives@nhs.net, telephone 01224 274912).
The photographs show a nurse holding a child with rickets at the Sick Childrens Hospital, Aberdeen and Aberdeen Royal Infirmary when it was at Woolmanhill. Both are part of the George Washington Wilson Archive.
The Medical Library Team
medlib@abdn.ac.uk
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