Refusals to Great Ormond Street Hospital

Admission to Great Ormond Street was subject to a number of conditions, and the hospital kept a register of those refused admission, with information on the reasons.

The register from 1881 to 1892 survives, and reveals that a large number of applicants were made out-patients, but many were recorded as unsuitable with no reason given. A number of under-age applicants were refused admission as the hospital had a policy of not admitting infants under 2 years. Exceptions to this were made however, and are recorded in a further register of under 2s admissions.

Other reasons for refusal include: ‘beds full’, ‘did not wish to be admitted’, ‘mother refused to leave child’, and ‘over age’ (the hospital’s age limit was 12 years).

The register has been transcribed and the data can be viewed and downloaded here.

A data sample is available to view here: Microsoft Excel format | CSV format

The full dataset can be requested here.