University Hospital Crosshouse
University Hospital Crosshouse, known locally as Crosshouse, is a large district general hospital situated outside the village of Crosshouse, two miles outside Kilmarnock town centre in Scotland. It provides services to the North Ayrshire and East Ayrshire areas and is managed by NHS Ayrshire and Arran.
Built to replace the former Kilmarnock Infirmary, it opened to patients in 1984, and today the hospital houses the national Cochlear Implant Service and provides paediatric inpatient services.
History
Work on the hospital, which was commissioned to replace the Kilmarnock Infirmary, began on the site in August 1972 with completion expected in May 1977. The contractor, Melville Dundas & Whitson, encountered difficulties with the water supply and ventilation systems and the facility was only officially opened by George Younger, Secretary of State for Scotland, as Crosshouse Hospital in June 1984.A new maternity unit, which replaced a similar facility at Ayrshire Central Hospital in Irvine was opened in the grounds of the hospital in 2006.
In March 2012 it became University Hospital Crosshouse as a result of a partnership with the University of the West of Scotland.
On 4 February 2021 the hospital was placed into a police lockdown due to "serious incidents" at the hospital and around Kilmarnock with all ambulance and hospital traffic diverted to University Hospital Ayr. A member of staff was dead in the hospital car park, the root cause of the murder being a family rather than hospital matter.