West Park Hospital was erected by London County Council during the years 1913-1924 and officially opened on 20 June 1924. It provided for 2096 patients and was the last hospital in the programme to establish five large psychiatric and mental handicap hospitals on the Horton estate in Epsom. West Park was managed by the West Park Hospital Sub-Committee of the LCC's Mental Hospitals Committee and was transferred to the National Health Service in July 1948, when responsibility passed to its own Hospital Management Committee under the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board.

The architectural construction of West Park was based on a 'colony' design, an idea imported form America where several wards were grouped together within the same building. Each building has its own communal integrity but is linked to the others by long, connecting corridors that stretch out across the site.

In the early 1960s the Minister of Health reorganised the hospitals with the amalgamation of management committees of hospitals caring for the mentally ill with general hospital management committees. As a result, the Epsom District and West Park Hospital Management Committees were merged to form the Epsom and West Park Group Hospital Management Committee in November 1969. A review of catchment areas undertaken at the same time led to West Park losing Lambeth and Southwark, and gaining Epsom. After 1974, this process of losing the London catchment areas continued with the last part of the old London catchment areas for which it was responsible being transferred to Springfield Hospital early in 1981. West Park's catchment area then became wholly that area covered by the Mid Surrey District.

West Park Hospital became part of the newly formed Surrey Heartlands NHS Trust in 1995 but much of the hospital is now closed, except for a few administration buildings, and awaiting re-development.

Important: please note that any patient records less than 100 years old and staff records less than 75 years old are likely to have access restrictions. Individual records are not available to view through this website. For details on viewing records please see the Access To Mental Hospital Records page.

The main accession numbers to find records for West Park Hospital at Surrey History Centre are 6280, 6294, 6366, 6380, 6423, 7329, 7604 and 7856. Click on the links to see the individual catalogues of these accessions which provide item descriptions.

The principal series of records held at Surrey History Centre and relating to individual patients are as follows, although there are gaps in some series.

Alphabetical Registers, 1924-1988
These include patient's date of admission; general reference no; name of patient; chargeability or area no; present status; date of departure/removal/discharge/death

Admission Registers, 1924-1990
These provide information relating to patients' names, reference numbers, date of admission, date of reception order, date of continuation of the order, sex, marital status, occupation, address, union, county or borough to which chargeable, form of mental disorder, supposed cause and duration of attacks, bodily health and the date of discharge, removal or death.  The names of hospitals from which or to which a patient was transferred are also given.

Discharge/Transfer Registers, 1924-1988
The details included in each register comprise the date of discharge or transfer, date of last admission and the name of patient, stating whether private or pauper.  If the patient was discharged the new address was given.  If the patient was transferred to another asylum the name of that institution was noted.  Medical details were only provided of those patients who were discharged 'recovered'.

Death Registers, 1924-1988
These provide details of the date of death, the date of last admission, the number of the patient in the civil register, the name of the patient and whether they were private or pauper, their sex, age, the duration of their last attack of mental illness, the forms of their disorder on admission and at death, the principal and contributory causes of death and whether these were confirmed by a post-mortem.  For registers of the Horton Cemetery that served all of the Epsom Cluster hospitals between c.1902 and 1955, see 6376.  An index to these registers has been prepared by Surrey History Centre volunteers, Mike and Gill Couper.

Post-Mortem Registers, 1924-1957

Funeral Registers, 1957-1962; 1978-1985

Patient Case Files, 1924-1940

Staff Records, 1924-1979

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Mrs Susan Israiel I am very interested to find out my grandmothers record.I was adopted as a baby and subsequent research shows she was at West park Hospital Epsom.Indeed I believe she died there.I dont even know what year she died.I am trying to piece my family history together but its very dfficult when patients records are kept private even when theyve passed away.

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