Maudsley Hospital

The Maudsley Hospital stands in the London Borough of Southwark as a psychiatric hospital. It forms part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and works closely with the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London. The hospital helped create the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines, used across mental health services. It belongs to the King’s Health Partners academic health science centre and hosts a biomedical research centre funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. The site also includes the Central Pathological Laboratory, transferred from Claybury Hospital in 1915. The hospital’s history began in 1907 when psychiatrist Henry Maudsley offered £30,000 to found a new mental hospital for early and acute cases. His associate Frederick Walker Mott had proposed the idea after visiting a Munich clinic. Construction finished in 1915 but the building was used for war veterans before opening in 1923 under superintendent Edward Mapother. Mapother and Frederick Golla took a pragmatic approach to diagnosis and treatment, while Mary Barkas worked in the children’s department established by William Dawson. The hospital gained a strong reputation for nurse training, with staff carrying out psychometric tests and occupational therapy instruction. Visitors to the Maudsley Hospital find a working mental health service alongside research facilities. The campus includes wards, outpatient departments and laboratories linked to the Institute of Psychiatry. The hospital has hosted notable staff such as Annie Altschul, Trevor Clay and Felix Post. In 2013 it featured in the Channel 4 documentary series Bedlam, which showed care on the Older Adults Ward. The site remains a key centre for mental health training, research and treatment in the UK.