A quarter-century at Pinderfields Hospital

For the past 25 years, Pinderfields Hospital has been more than just a workplace for me; it has been a home, a community, and a place where I have grown and developed as a doctor. I started as a junior doctor in the year 2000, a fresh faced 23 year old looking forward to starting a career in medicine. I did not know then how integral Pinderfields would be in my life. Back then, I lived within the hospital walls with 11 other first-year doctors. The hospital was a mix of old Victorian buildings and "temporary" huts connected by a maze of seemingly endless corridors. We walked a lot every day and when the cardiac arrest bleep went off it was a very long way to run from one side to the other.

In those early days, everything was done with paper and pen. We had to find a phone to answer bleeps (pagers) and carry bits of paper across the hospital to request an X-ray or consult with a specialist Consultant. CT scans were rare because we had only one scanner which worked very slowly, it was used only for the most critical cases. One night, the hospital caught fire, and we had to evacuate. That was a night I will never forget.

In 2025 the NHS as a whole and Pinderfields Hospital are very different. We now have multiple CT scanners, MRI scanners, and even surgical robots helping us to diagnose and treat those in need. The hospital has modern digital technology, new buildings and we now have over 1,000 doctors working at the trust.

Today I am the Chief Medical Officer; I look back on the hospital's changes with pride and humility. It is amazing to think that my 25 years here are just a small part of the time the people of Wakefield and surrounding district have been cared for at this site. Looking ahead, I hope Pinderfields will become a University Hospital with a healthcare campus linked to the University of Leeds and other local Universities. A place where we continue to strive to provide excellent care, even when that can be challenging at times, but also a place where research and innovation thrive, creating local jobs, improving lives and making a global impact by helping others learn from what we do well.

As Pinderfields continues to change, I am committed to respecting its legacy while building a future that embraces new technology and treatments to help those that need our help most. But no matter how the hospital changes or what technology we have, it is the people who work here and receive care - some of whom I met 25 years ago - who make Pinderfields what it is. Our staff often share both the worst and the best moments of our patient’s lives. ,

These are my memories, whether patients or colleagues, and they have all taught me along the way. Thank you for that privilege.

- Richard Robinson, Chief Medical Officer