Leeds General Infirmary, also known as the LGI, is a large teaching hospital based in the centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, and is part of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Its previous name The General Infirmary at Leeds is still sometimes used. The LGI is a specialist centre for a number of services, including the Major Trauma Centre and hand transplants. It also provides many general acute services like A&E, intensive care and high dependency units, maternity and state-of-the-art operating theatres. Two new hospitals are planned on the site. One will be a maternity unit with capacity to deliver up to 10,500 babies a year. Completion is planned between 2026-2028. It will remove the need to transfer expectant mothers between St James’s Hospital and Leeds General Infirmary. History The first hospital known as Leeds Infirmary was opened in 1771 on what is now the site of the former Yorkshire Bank in Infirmary Street off City Square, Leeds. Notably, the founding five physicians at the infirmary were all graduates of the University of Edinburgh Medical School. Construction of the current hospital on its new site in Great George Street started in 1863 to the designs of Sir George Gilbert Scott. Before drawing up the plans Gilbert Scott and the Infirmary's Chief Physician, Dr Charles Chadwick, visited many of the great contemporary hospitals of Europe. They were particularly impressed by hospitals based on the pavilion plan recommended by Miss Florence Nightingale, and adopted this for the new Infirmary. It featured the latest innovations, with plentiful baths and lavatories throughout, and a system of hydraulic hoists to reduce the labours of attendants and nurses. However, the very high ceilings recommended by Nightingale meant that it could not be adequately heated, and doors to bathrooms were too narrow to admit a wheelchair. Though completed in 1868, it had no patients for the first year. Instead it actually housed a temporary loan exhibition (‘National Exhibition of Works of Art’), held to recover some of the £100,000 construction costs. Unfortunately, after half a million visitors, the profit came to only £5. It was officially opened on 19 May 1869 by Prince Albert, The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). The building was extended to designs by George Corson between 1891 and 1892. The Brotherton Wing, which now faces Millennium Square opened in 1940, the Martin and Wellcome Wings opened in the 1960s, the